


A Silent Voice

by Winner_of_the_disability_bingo



Series: A Silent Voice [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hiccup can talk to Dragons, Original Dragon Characters - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Soulmates, because i'm cliche like that, disabled!hiccup, hiccup can understand dragons, kind of, mute!hiccup, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 42,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21883402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winner_of_the_disability_bingo/pseuds/Winner_of_the_disability_bingo
Summary: When Valka burst in on her son playing with a dragon, its surprise had some more serious consequences. Hiccup is forced to grow up without the ability to speak. He thinks that there is no hope for him and is desperate to prove his place. Until he shoots down a Night Fury.My first story.Cross-posted on ff.net
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Series: A Silent Voice [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576417
Comments: 49
Kudos: 350





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story (probably going to be surprisingly long for a first story though) so I am not sure how it is going to go. I hope that if I happen to make any mistakes, then you guys can let me know and I will see if I can fix them.  
> Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD or anything related to it (other than the entire book series and several plushies and plastic toys at my house, those are mine)  
> I hope you enjoy :)

Valka ran through the burning village as fast as her feet could take her. She passed countless battles between her people and the dragons, raced across burning patches of grass, and ignored the crumbling buildings surrounding her. Normally, she would stop and try to break up as many of these battles as she could or to put out a fire, but right now, she had something far more important to do. Someone more important to help.

Once she reached the Haddock house, she ripped open the old oak door and raced up the stairs, avoiding pieces of wood that had fallen from the roof -presumably, from when the dragon had broken in- as she went. Finally, she reached the door to her son's bedroom and practically ripped the door –or what was left of it- off its hinges when opening it. She grabbed one of the axes left hanging on the wall, not caring that it was blunt from old battles, and prepared to attack the creature.

The sight she was met with when she got close to it stopped her in her tracks.

It was the largest dragon Valka had ever seen, with four great wings sprouting from its back and its enormous form taking up almost half the room. Its wings and horns were a dark orange, fading to brown over the rest of the body. Its under-belly was alight beige and it had enormous blue spines emerging from its back.  
However, the dragon itself was not what surprised her. It held a winged claw almost as big as her forearm over her son's cradle. Little Hiccup was giggling and trying to grab hold of the claw. It was playing with him.

Valka almost dropped her weapon in shock, but kept moving forward. It must have heard her approach because it whirled around to face her. She was transfixed by it before she heard a gurgling cry. Both she and the dragon turned to face the child in the cot. Blood was gushing from an enormous gash across Hiccup's face and throat. The dragon had cut him when it turned to face her.

Both Valka and the dragon let out cries of horror at the sight. Valka was about to rush towards the cradle when the dragon gently leaned its head in to it. It began blowing a soft flame onto the gash. She cried for it to stop before she realised what it was trying to. The open wound was soon replaced with burnt scar tissue and the blood stopped gushing. Hiccup was still crying but it came out as more of a growl. It was obvious he was still in pain, but when he realised he could breathe again he let out a purr-like giggle and reached out to pat the dragon's face.

Valka relaxed and leaned into the dragon's shoulder.  
"Thank you, dragon."  
The dragon turned to face her, yellow, owl-like eyes large and filled with intelligence. It purred at her, and she smiled back.

She reached out to the dragon, not entirely sure what she was trying to do, when suddenly the she heard a yell from behind her. She turned to face the entryway in surprise; Stoick had come to kill the dragon that had saved her son's life.

The dragon, obviously spooked by his sudden and violent appearance, screeched and blew tunnelled flames at her husband.

Valka cried out to it, "Stop! You're only making it worse!"

She grabbed the dragon's shoulder, trying to stop its attack. It stopped breathing flames and turned back to her. They stood frozen, staring at each other. Before she could do anything else, it grabbed her in its enormous claws and lifted the both of them off the ground.  
Valka had barely registered what had happened when she heard her husband shout out her name. She could feel the icy wind biting at her skin and the claws that dug into her shoulders. She struggled in the dragon's claws and shouted Stoick's name back, before resigning herself to her fate. She only hoped that her family would be okay without her.


	2. The Raid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD or anything related to it.
> 
> I don't know much about sign language but i used what I do know for the conversations. If anyone notices any mistakes please point them out and i will try to remember them for next time. (or I could use the excuse that Norse sign language may have its own rules seperate to modern sign language)

For reference:

"talking"  
'thinking'  
"sign language" (how do I make this underlined) 

Hiccup woke to the sound of a bloodbath. Knowing Gobber would need him in the forge, he forced himself down the stairs and prepared himself for the race through the village. He stopped at the door, beginning to cautiously open it, faintly hoping it was a human raid and not-

_'Dragons.'_

With that hope squashed, Hiccup summoned all his speed and threw open the door. He raced down the hill his house sat atop. Along the way dodging dragon fire and battle-crazed Vikings and cursing whomever it was that decided to put the chieftain's house so far away from the rest of the village.

The Vikings he passed shouted that he needed to be inside, as if he didn't already know that. Finally, he finished weaving through the destructive mess and slipped into Gobber's forge.

"Nice of you to join the party, I thought you'd been carried off." The village blacksmith turned so he could see Hiccup's signing while continuing to work.

 _"Who? Me? No! Way too muscular. Not know what to do with…"_ He gestured to his twig of an arm while Gobber chuckled in the background.  
"Well, they need toothpicks don't they?"

Hiccup rolled his eyes and set to sharpening a group of swords. His attention was briefly drawn to screaming outside. He watched as one-by-one the other teenagers in the village ran past the shop window, naming them in his head as they passed. Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, _Astrid_.

Hiccup had always liked Astrid. She was smart, strong beautiful and the most capable person and promising dragon fighter in the entire village. But she would never take him. Not only was he the village mess-up, he couldn't even talk to tell her how he feels. Of course, it's required for everyone in the village to learn sign language, for political reasons, his father told him when he had asked. But Hiccup knew it was still a lost cause. She would never even look at him.

For a second Hiccup entertained the idea of sneaking out and testing his new invention, the bola launcher, Gods knew he couldn't throw one on his own. But he decided against doing it, or at least doing it while Gobber was inside.

A high-pitched screeching interrupted his pondering. _Night Fury_. If Hiccup wanted any chance of becoming a dragon hunter, that was the one he had to kill.  
Hiccup noticed the appearance of the dragon had shaken Gobber and the other Vikings outside, but he ignored his mentor in favour of continuing to fix the broken blades the Vikings brought in. He looked up when Gobber caught his attention.

"Man the fort Hiccup, they need me out there." He must have noticed the look on Hiccup's face because he added on, "stay, put, there." He gave the blacksmith a dry look, "You know what I mean." He watched as Gobber disappeared into the crowd. This was his chance.

The second he finished fixing the weapons he was working on and put them on the bench for warriors to take, Hiccup rushed to his new invention and rolled it through the village. He was shouted at by the fighters that passed by but they were ignored in lieu of making his way to the cliffside hill next to the village.  
Setting up the launcher with a flick of his wrist, Hiccup set himself on the edge of the cliff ' _Come on. Show yourself.'_

After several minutes of waiting, he spotted a small shadow covering the stars. He kept his eye on it and carefully aimed. The shadow swooped down with a terrible screech and set fire to one of the towers. It was right in front of him. _'Now or never'_ , Hiccup aimed and released, the recoil pushing him to the ground.

Hiccup watched in awe as the shadow fell to the woods (just near Raven's Point!) with a banshee-like scream and he let out a roar of excitement. ' _Did anybody see that?_ ' He was interrupted by a heavy sound behind him. A Monstrous Nightmare had snuck up on him. He let out a small whimper, ' _except for you._ '

The dragon lunged at him, Hiccup just barely dodging and running into the woods. He knew that if he tried to get anyone's attention, they would mistake him for another dragon – curse whichever God decided that his disfigurement would give him the voice of a beast. So, to avoid the damage, he led the dragon to a place where he knew the dragon couldn't reach him.

He reached the clearing –through a tunnel made of fallen trees just small enough that the dragon didn't fit inside- the forest was to his left and a small waterfall was falling to his right, the clearing was scattered with pieces of metal and wood. He heard the sound of wingbeats overhead and ran to the waterfall, sliding behind it.

Behind the water was a cave, lit up by the reflection of sunlight through the water. On the walls were drawings, diagrams, and equations. Some of the drawings had colour in them; they were varied in size and the level of detail. Towards the back of the cave, tunnels branched out into a cave system that Hiccup knew covered almost the entire island.

He had spent lots of free time exploring the forest and the caves. There wasn't really anything the village would let him do if he didn't have the voice to communicate with them. Of course, they all knew sign language. But most jobs required both hands to be in use and he couldn't ask questions or tell them something was wrong if his hands were full. Or, that's what Hiccup's father said, he actually knew it was because no one but Gobber wanted to deal with him.

The dragon approached the cave, prompting Hiccup hide inside a crag in the cave wall. He heard the dragon break through the water. Now it couldn't breathe fire and roast him alive. The tapping claws came closer, the water would have hidden his scent but the was still a trail of footprints to follow.

Hiccup jumped when a large scaled head was thrust in front of him. He unconsciously let out a low warning growl, a response that stopped the dragon in its tracks. Hiccup and the dragon stared at each other. One in fear, the other in confusion. At last, the beast's eyes softened and it let out a growl that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. And turned, leaving the cave and a confused Hiccup behind it.

Realising he didn't have time to be confused, Hiccup raced out of the cave and back to the village, it was already dawn and Gods knew how much trouble he would get in for leaving the forge.

He was halfway through the village when he tripped; he started rolling down the hill before being stopped by a large back. Stoick turned to face his son with disappointment in his eyes. Hiccup shuffled awkwardly before remembering why he was chased in the first place.

 _"Caught Night Fury."_ Stoick sighed and grabbed Hiccup by the scruff of his shirt - said boy letting out an indignant yelp at the action - and dragging him towards their house. He knew better than to try to argue with the chief especially since his father's gaze was nowhere near Hiccups hands. Instead, he settled for making a disgruntled growling noise.

He was hefted into Gobber's hands and told to 'get home' and 'stay there'. Like that was going to happen. Along the way he made conversation out of his growls while Gobber pretended to understand him. Once he was dropped at the door, he switched to sign language.

_"Excuse, barmaid, you bring wrong child, order extra large, beefy arm, guts and glory, this, talking fishbone."  
_

"Look, it's not so much the looks, its's what's inside that he can't stand." Hiccup gave the blacksmith a dry look. "I don't know what you got up to out there, but you need to stop trying so hard to be something you're not."

 _"Want be like you."_ He turned and walked inside the house, closing the door behind him. Then, leaning against the door, Hiccup waited for Gobber to go back down the hill. When the sound of footsteps faded, he smirked and dashed through the house and out the back door. Time to hunt a dragon.


	3. The Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! You've probably guessed by now that my updates will not be regular. I usually write these during class after I finish my work. With the holidays coming up, I might write at home if I feel motivated enough. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD or anything related

**Reference:**

"talking"

_'thinking'_

_"sign language"_

* * *

Hiccup walked despondently through the woods, scribbling over his hastily made map of the island. _'Some people lose their knife or their mug. Not me, I manage to lose an entire dragon!_ ' His frustration prompted him to hit a nearby branch but it retaliated and hit him in the eye. He made a small yip and glared at the offending plant. Then, he noticed the massive break in the tree. His eyes followed the destruction to a path into a small clearing. Curiously, Hiccup crawled up the ditch and peaked over the edge.

A large black shape lay in the middle of the clearing, tied in bola rope. Hiccup let out a fearful laugh and approached the downed creature. _'I did it!'_ He was close enough to see the patterns in the scales, _'this changes everything.'_ He knelt one foot on the dragon, letting slip a proud rumble. _'I have brought down this mighty-'_

The dragon threw Hiccup of with a shove of its chest. He grabbed his knife and crept closer. The dragon stared him down. It was helpless, but Hiccup still felt that it was in control here. He tightened his grip on the dagger, making as threatening a growl as he could. _'I'm going to kill you dragon. I'm going to cut out your heart and take it to my father.'_ His growling grew louder and more forceful. _'I am a Viking, I am a Viking!'_

He held the dagger above his head, ready to plunge in into the dragon's chest. Something stopped him. There was something in the dragon's gaze. Something that made him think twice. It was scared. Just as scared as he was. How? Dragons were monsters right? Why would they feel fear? They stared at each other, unified in their fear, until the dragon finally closed its eyes, making a pained moan. 'Just get it over with,' it sounded like. Of course, that was if dragons were intelligent enough for it to know that kind of phrase. To be beyond just fear and anger. Probably not.

Hiccup tried to steel himself. Tried to go through with his plan. Tried to do something that would make him the village hero. But then he thought, _'why? Why would I kill something just as scared as I am right now? That would make me the monster.'_

It was no use. He couldn't do it. The dragon was just as alive as he was. He couldn't take than from it.

Hiccup turned to go back to the village. _'So I'm just going to leave it to a slow death?'_ He stopped. He took a breath. He re-evaluated all his life choices. He turned around and knelt beside the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. He started cutting the ropes.

As more of the ropes loosened around the limp dragon, Hiccup grew more anxious. What if someone found him. What if the dragon woke up. What if it was pretending to be unconscious only to pounce and eat him the second it was free. What if-

It leapt, landed on Hiccup and pinned him to the ground. The breath was knocked out of him and Hiccup feared he would never get the chance to get it back. He closed his eyes and braced himself for his imminent doom. But it didn't come.

Hiccup squinted one eye open. It was staring at him. He opened the other and stared back. He made a whimpering sound. The dragon blinked. It made the same sound back.

Unsure, Hiccup made the sound again. The dragon repeated. What was going on? Did it think he was a dragon? Suddenly, the dragon threw itself off him – as if it realised that Hiccup was, in fact, a human – and screamed in his face.

Satisfied with its work, the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself huffed at Hiccup and leapt out of the clearing. Hiccup watched as it attempted to fly off, smacking itself into tree after tree and falling back to the ground.

After it had faded out of sight, Hiccup stumbled to his feet, took a step, and promptly fainted. Well, at least he wasn't dead.

* * *

By the time Hiccup woke up, the sun was setting. His head ached and his back cramped. He lay still for a few minutes before remembering that he had to get home. He groaned lowly and heaved himself off the ground. He looked around the small clearing, eyes landing on the broken lines of bola rope. Right. That's what happened.

Slowly, Hiccup collected the broken bola off the ground and turned around to walk in the direction of the village. His dad was going to be _so_ mad at him.

* * *

He arrived home after dark. Careful not to wake the chief, he closed the door as silently as possible behind him. Turning around, Hiccup noticed Stoick's huge form bent over the fire. Mindfully, Hiccup crept to the stairs and began to ascend. Hopefully, Stoick wouldn't notice him and he would be able to go straight to bed.

"Hiccup." Well, there goes that plan. "I need to speak with you son."

 _"I speak you too."_ Both males took a deep breath.

"I think it's time you learn to fight dragons," came out of one's mouth, at the same time, the other's hands formed _"I not want fight dragon."_ They stopped, and stared. Then, Stoick sighed.

"You go first."

 _"No. you."_ Stoick nodded in acknowledgement.

"Alright. You get your wish. Dragon Training. You start in the morning." He ignored Hiccup's panicked expression and his violent head shakes in favour of picking up an axe, and dropping it in Hiccup's frantically signing arms. "You'll need this." The boy struggled to sign with the massive object in his arms.

_"N-O-D-R-A-G-O-N"_

"That's the spirit." Hiccup huffed and tried again.

_"N-O-K-I-L-L"_

"But you will kill dragons."

_"N-O"_

"It's time, Hiccup. This is serious son. When you carry this axe, you carry all of us with you. Which means you walk like us and you think like us. No more of this…" he ended his speech with a gesture to Hiccup. "Deal?"

_"B-U-"_

"DEAL?" Defeated, Hiccup bowed his head in acceptance with his chief. "Good. Train hard. I'll be back. Probably." He opened the door and stepped out, closing it heavily behind him. _'And I'll be here. Maybe.'_

Hiccup waited to make sure his father was gone, dropping the axe after he had confirmed the man would not be back that night. He let out a heavy sigh. And veered back onto his original course to his bedroom. Lying down, he could not help but wonder, what was that dragon doing now?


	4. First Lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My exams are over! Super happy about that. I won't have to do them again for a whole year.  
> I've been thinking of giving this story sequels, but the question is whether to do just the movies/specials or to include rob, dob and rtte. If enough of you guys want the series' written, then i can do that. for now, enjoy my story :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD or anything related. It belongs to its creators/owners.

**For reference:**

"talking"  
 _'thinking'_  
"sign language"

* * *

Hiccup woke the next day no less anxious than he was the night before. Maybe it would just get worse. Maybe that's who he was now.

He rolled out of bed and made his way downstairs to the kitchen. On the way, he decide the same thing that he decided every morning. That whomever it was that designed the stairs he was currently walking down, they needed to go to Hel. Then he remembered, as he did every morning, that he designed them. It was so Stoick couldn't speak into his room. They were too thin and oddly shaped for him to be able to step up them quietly; they would creak under his weight.

Hiccup grabbed a piece of stale bread –after pulling one of the stools from the dining table over to the cupboards, he couldn't wait until he got his growth spurt- and nibbled on it. Dragon training starts today doesn't it. Great.

* * *

Walking through the village was uneventful, most of the adults ignored him –as was usual for them– though some gave him suspicious looks when they noticed the axe in his hands. They probably thought he was planning something that would end in the village destroyed. It was certainly not unfounded, he had absolutely no idea how the only thing he had managed to destroy two nights ago was the bola launcher. Even then, the Monstrous Nightmare had broken it. Maybe it was the Gods rewarding him for shooting down the Night Fury. Though They probably would have taken it back if They knew Hiccup would let the dragon go.

It was warm out. Well, warm for Berk. The near constant dragon attacks meant that the snow melted almost as soon as it landed. It wouldn't be until Proper Winter that the snow actually stayed on the ground. That's how seasons went by; Near Winter, Proper Winter, Devastating Winter and End Winter. Gods, he wished he lived on the mainland; this far North is no good for anyone without at least a tonne of fat on them. Maybe the Scots would be kind to him; DunBroch currently had a truce with them, that could work out.

* * *

He ended up at the back of the group of teenagers. So far, none of them had noticed him. He only just managed to catch the tail end of their conversation.

"Yeah, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it." He couldn't help but let out a loud scoff, followed closely by a sarcastic chuckle. It was a growl, but it sounded vaguely like a chuckle, so the effect got across. The other kids turned at the sound, finally noticing he was even there.

Hiccup rolled his eyes while the other teens laughed at Tuffnut's marvellous joke. Before one of the others could add something in, Gobber began the lesson.

"Let's get started," thank you Gobber, "the recruit who does best, will receive the honour of killing his first dragon in front of the entire village." Gobber, why would you say that.

"Um," there it is, "Hiccup already killed a Night Fury, so, does that disqualify him or…?" Really. Hilarious.

"Can I transfer to the class with the cool Vikings?" Geniuses. All of them.

Gobber turned away from the other students to reassure him, laying one giant arm around Hiccup's shoulders and nearly knocking him over. "Don't worry. You're small, you're weak, that'll make you less of a target! They'll see you as sick or insane and go after the more Viking-like teens instead." How very comforting, thank you Gobber. The blacksmith-turned-teacher took his arm off Hiccup and addressed the whole class. "Behind these doors are just a few of the many species you will learn to fight!" With each introduction, he gestured towards the door with the same dragon behind it. "The Deadly Nadder."

"Speed, eight. Armour, sixteen." Well someone was passionate.

""The Hideous Zippleback."

"Plus eleven stealth, times two." That didn't make any sense. Did he miss a word?

"The Monstrous Nightmare."

"Fire power, fifteen." How do the dragons feel about the fact that we've given them such unflattering names.

"The Terrible Terror."

"Attack, eight. Venom, twelve." Please stop talking Fishlegs.

"CAN YOU STOP THAT?" Thank you Gobber, what would we do without you. "And." He rested his hand on the door lever and gave them a sly look. "The Gronckle." Please Gobber, don't do it.

"Jaw strength, eight." Fishlegs, none of what you are doing helps anyone.

Snotlout, the real intelligent one there, must have realised what Gobber was about to do because he promptly started panicking.

"Whoa, wait! Aren't you gonna teach us first." Snotlout you fool. You absolute idiot.

"I believe in learning on the job." Not a good philosophy for any of his jobs. Hiccup had lost count of how many scars he had received from Gobber's teaching methods in the forge.

With that, Gobber released the dragon. The students, as any sensible human would, ran. The dragon briefly stopped its attack to gobble up some boulders left on the side of the arena. Gobber, why did you give it ammunition.

"Today is about survival." Every day is about survival on this Gods forsaken rock. "If you get blasted, you're dead." Then maybe don't let it fire at us. "Quick, what's the first thing you need!?"

"Plus five speed?" What does that even mean?

"A shield." Astrid, you're amazing.

"Shields! Go! Your most important piece of equipment is your shield!" during his lecture, he helped Hiccup mount a shield on his arm. "If you have to take the choice between a sword and a shield, take the shield!" Well, at least he gave them that. That was actually useful.

The recruits made a run for the pile of shields at the side of the arena. Astrid, Fishlegs and Snotlout grabbed theirs immediately, while the twins were stuck fighting over one in the large pile of near-identical shields.

"Get your hands off my shield!"

"There's like a million shields" That's true.  
"Take that one, it has a flower on it, girls like flowers." Well that was sexist. Clearly, Ruffnut thought so too because she ripped the shield out of her brother's hands and slammed him over the head with it.

"Oops, now this one has blood on it."

The raucous had drawn the attention of everyone else in the arena, including the dragon they were meant to be fighting. It turned, flew towards them, and blew their shield to splinters. The twins were left sitting dazed and defenceless in the middle of the ring.

"Tuffnut, Ruffnut, you're out!"

After the twins had gotten out of the way, Gobber turned back to the remaining teen to once again give his sage advice.

"Those shields are good for another thing. Noise. Make lots of it to throw off a dragon's aim!" Also helpful. You're full of surprises today Gobber.

The trainees desperately clapped their weapons to their shields. At the same time, moving away from the dragon, out of its range.

"All dragons have a limited number of shots. How many does a Gronckle have!"

Snotlout gave a stammering guess, "five?"

Fishlegs stopped his banging to raise his hand. "No, six!"

"Correct! That's one for each of you" Fishlegs' shield was suddenly blown out of his hand. that's what he gets for sticking his arm in the air. He screamed and ran. "Fishlegs, out." Fishlegs ran past Hiccup and Gobber noticed that he was hiding behind a plank of wood. "Hiccup, get in there." The boy in question rolled his eyes behind his shield. _'The objective is survival. That is exactly what I'm doing.'_

Hiccup watched Astrid and Snotlout talking on the other side of the ring. Whatever Snotlout was trying to do, it wasn't working. With the dragon distracted by them, Hiccup mad his way out from behind the plank. The two other kids were separated when a blast hit Snotlout's shield and knocked him to the ground.

"Snotlout, you're done!" Astrid's flips brought her over to Hiccup's side. He smiled at her and attempted to make a suave purr. He failed. _'Just you and me now?'_

She rolled off with a short, "it's just you." That was rude.

The Gronckle fired again. While it missed, Hiccup's shield was knocked off his arm. Leaving him to fun after the rolling piece of wood.

"One shot left! Hiccup!" He looked up at his name and notice the dragon following right after him. It followed him until he had nowhere else to run. Hiccup collapsed against the arena wall and turned to face the dragon. It opened its enormous maw, ready to take his head off. Hiccup braced for the blow, heard a shout and felt a huge burst of heat to his left side. He opened his eyes to see Gobber wrestling the Gronckle back into its cage.

Once the dragon was safely away, Gobber helped a still stunned Hiccup of the floor of the arena and turned to speak to the gathered teens. "Remember, a dragon will always." He paused and twist back to face Hiccup. "Always, go for the kill." He turned once again to Face to whole class. "Lessons are over for today, do what you will." With that said, Gobber left the ring. One by one the other recruits followed him until Hiccup was the only one left in the arena. He swivelled to face the forest, or what he could see of it over the arena walls. _'Always?'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got the reference, I love you and you get a free enchanted bow for your characters/OCs.


	5. Second Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I've uploaded this one fairly quickly because I've been working on it during my free periods, which I probably wont have a chance to do next year considering I only have them this week and next week. If i keep being this productive, I might be able to upload the 5th chapter next week (or the week after).  
> Also! A special thanks to EchoTheHybrid (apologies if I got the username wrong) for giving me some really great ideas for the story. As well as to all the people who let me know about the formatting error in my first couple of chapters.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own HTTYD or anything related

**Reference:**

"talking"

_'thinking'_

"sign language"

* * *

The sun was much higher in the sky this time around. Almost all of the morning fog had evaporated and Hiccup was granted a clear view of the forest. Hiccup always loved wandering through the forest, he had explored almost every inch of it. You get the time to do things like that when no one in the village pays attention to you unless you're causing trouble.

It didn't take him long to find the leftover bola ropes. He really needed to do something about them. He had the time for a detour, might as well.

He looked around to make sure he would remember where to come back to. Once he was sure he would be able to return, he left a mark in the dirt to be sure, you can never be too careful. With that done, he picked up the broken ropes and threw them over his shoulder.

He had never travelled to the cave system from this direction. He wasn't worried though. If he followed the map he had made in his head after years of exploring the island, he would make it there.

Wandering through the forest, Hiccup was left to his own thoughts. _'If they always go for the kill, why didn't that one? Were they grateful I saved their life, were they even now? But surely, if they always go for the kill then they always go for the kill. Repaying a debt would mean they had intelligence, a moral code. That was impossible. Maybe they were different. Maybe-.'_ Hiccup stopped suddenly, just barely avoiding a tree root. Why was he referring to the dragon by 'they'? It was a dragon, a mindless beast. It was an _it_.

Hiccup started his journey once more, shaking his head. He would not think about it unless he saw the- _it_ again.

It wasn't long before Hiccup entered his cove through the tunnel of trees. Just as he came out it occurred to him that the Night Fury could probably fit through the tunnel. It was hardly useful information and he wasn't sure why he had had the thought.

He dropped the bola ropes in a ditch filled with other broken items at the far end of the cove, where the forest met the cliff wall. Eventually, he would find something to do with them, but for now, they would stay there.

As he made his way back across the cove, he heard a rustling coming from the bushes. He stopped. He turned. That wasn't the sound of wind. There was something in there. Keeping low and staying slow, he crept closer to the bushes. It was silent for a few seconds, and then a loud hiss came from the bush. A dragon.

Hiccup fell back in surprise. Then he ran out through the tree-tunnel as fast as he could. He was already planning on meeting one dragon today, he didn't want to run into another. He just hoped that by the time he came back it will have decided to move on.

* * *

Entering back into the small clearing, Hiccup stopped to stare at the place where the dragon had lain. His earlier thoughts came back to him, _'if all dragons go for the kill, why didn't you?'_ Looking around the clearing, he noticed small, black, circular objects strewn through the dirt. He bent down to pick one up and inspected it. A dragon scale.

It was navy blue. With the way the sunlight hit it, it was almost iridescent. One second it was black, then navy blue, then dark grey and even a dark purple. It glittered in the light. The dragon it came from must be beautiful. Gods how he wanted to see that Night Fury again.

Looking up, Hiccup saw a trail of scales leading into the forest. He followed slowly, stopping to pick up every scale he saw and storing them in his vest pockets.

The more Hiccup picked up the scales, the more he found them covered in blood. Had the dragon been injured in the fall? Hiccup remembered the way the dragon shook and fell when they tried to fly away. He also remember the pained scream they had made as they were ripped from the sky by his bola rope. Of course they were hurt. Hiccup struggled to remember the basic training for healing. With as much fighting as Vikings do, it helps for everyone to have basic first aid knowledge. He only hoped that he would be able to apply them to a dragon.

Hang on. Why did he want to help the dragon? They couldn't talk. They couldn't answer his questions.

Well, Hiccup had always resolved to help everyone he can in every way he can –a decision that put him in much more trouble than did good- so maybe it was just the same here. The dragon was alive. Living things deserved to be helped when they needed it, dragon or not. Besides, he was already referring to them by 'they' anyway, why not do more to betray his tribe.

Hiccup had been so caught up in consideration –and in collecting the dragon scales- that he walked right into a boulder. He rubbed his bruised nose and looked to see where the trail had led. He had walked down a hill and now faced a wall made of boulders. He weaved between them, walking further downwards. The trail led him to a small gap between two large boulders. Hiccup hesitantly crouched through the opening.

On the other side, there was a huge cove, almost twice the size of his own. The stone walls towered on every side, making his way in one of the only ways out on foot. The cliffs were coated in vines and tree roots, trees and boulders were scattered around. On the far right of the cove, behind a large cluster of rocks and boulders, there was a dark hole in the cliff wall. Was that another way into the islands tunnels? Maybe he would explore them at some point. A large lake sat in the middle of the cove. He could just see scales littered over the ground. No sign of a dragon though. _'Well, this was stupid.'_

As soon as the words crossed his mind, a shadow jumped up in front of him. Hiccup reeled back in surprise. Quickly crawling back to the edge of the crag, Hiccup saw the dragon to his right struggling to climb the cliff face. After several more seconds of scrambling up the rocks, the dragon fell back to the ground. They opened their wings to soften the landing and glided across the cove.

They collapsed after landing next to the lake. Hiccup watched as they attempted to catch a fish, blowing bright purple fire into the ground when they failed.

Realising he had an opportunity, Hiccup swiftly took his notebook out from one of his vest pockets. He carefully eyed and catalogued the details of the dragon before beginning to draw a rough sketch of them.

Once he was done, he noticed that he had accidentally drawn a tail fin where there wasn't one. He rubbed it out.

Hiccup watched the dragon pace the cove for several more seconds. _'Why don't you just… fly away?'_ He remembered the blood coated scales from the clearing. Were they too injured to fly? He could only hope that they recovered before another Viking found them.

Hiccup had shifted back while he was thinking and his hand had relaxed around the piece of charcoal he was drawing with. It slipped out of his hand. Hiccup attempted to grab it, but it rolled off the rock and onto the ground before he could.

At the sound of the utensil hitting the ground, the dragon whipped around to face Hiccup. They stared at each other. Hiccup tilted his head. The dragon tilted theirs. This was feeling awfully familiar. The dragon made a low rumbling sound. It almost sounded… friendly. Was it a greeting? Hiccup made the same sound back. They purred. He must have done something right.

A thunderclap sounded above and both looked up. Dark grey clouds coated the sky and the air was starting to feel humid. It was going to rain soon. Hiccup realised that he needed to go back to the village. He gave one last glance at the dragon –who had also decided to seek shelter if the way it was running to an overhang on the other side of the cove was any indication- before running back to the village.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been thinking of adding a Dragon OC into the story to make it more interesting, but I can't figure out what species, gender or age I want them to be.   
> I've been trying to decide between Light Fury, Night Fury (because this is an au and I can do that), Stormcutter (Cloudjumper's species) or a dragon of my own creation (that I haven't created yet but I will if that's what you guys want). I'm leaving this part of the story in your capable hands.


	6. The Book of Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Back! Wow, I am on a roll here. That's probably happens when teachers think it takes someone three whole lessons to make a dot-point presentation. I might be able to finish/upload the next chapter by next week. If I can't, I'll probably see you guys either during the holidays or after I get back to school. Enjoy :)
> 
> Disclaimer: HTTYD belongs to its creators/owners and I am neither of those.

**Reference:**

"talking"

_'thinking'_

"sign language"

* * *

By the time Hiccup got back to the village the rain had soaked through his clothes and frozen him to the bone. He opened the old, creaking oak doors to the Great Hall and approached the table occupied by the other recruits. Once he was in hearing range, he was just able to catch the tail end of Gobber's lecture.

"-Thing we know about every dragon we know of." He must have been talking about the book he had dropped on the table when Hiccup walked in. Thunder roared overhead. The Vikings in the hall took a moment to watch the roof for signs of attack. It was unlikely, considering the dragons wouldn't be able to breathe fire in this weather, but it was always a possibility. Satisfied, Gobber looked back down to the teens. "No attacks tonight. Study up." With that said, Gobber left the students to their own devices.

Tuffnut dropped the knife he had been attempting to balance on the table and protested, closely followed by his sister.

"Wait, you mean read?"

"While we're still alive?"

Snotlout decided to throw in his own two cents. "Why read words when you can just kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about." Because Snotlout. If you try to attack something without knowing how to do it or how to defend yourself, you will die.

Apparently, Fishlegs thought that being the absolute nerd that Hiccup aspires to be one day would encourage the other recruits to learn. Hiccup knew before Fishlegs even opened his mouth that it wouldn't work.

"I've read it, like, seven times! There's this water dragon that sprays boiling water at your face!" A Scauldron if Hiccup remembered correctly, they rarely left the water so Berk only had to worry about them on fishing trips or voyages to other islands. "And there's this other one that buries itself for like a week!" Whispering Death maybe, Hiccup also vaguely remembered something about Sand Wraiths doing that too.

Tuffnut cut Fishlegs off with a wave of his hand and he and Ruffnut decided to comment.

"Yeah, that sounds great. See, there was a chance I was going to read that..."

"…But, now..."

Snotlout decided to inform them of his plans for the night. "You guys read, I'll go kill stuff." Hiccup would have loved to see what he planned on killing, considering there wasn't a raid and (usually) anyone who hadn't graduated the academy weren't allowed beyond the village markers without supervision.

Fishlegs and the twins got up to follow him, Fishlegs continuing to prattle on about dragons, even though he must have known by now that his audience wasn't listening. Hiccup heard something about a dragon with spines that look like trees before they were out of earshot. He couldn't bring to mind any dragon that looked like that, although he did remember that some of the legends Gobber used to tell him about included the Foreverwing. That dragon matched the description, but no one even knew if it was real. Maybe Fishlegs had gotten fact and fable mixed up. Gobber did that all the time.

The other teens' departure left Hiccup and Astrid with the book between them. Hiccup gave the girl a nervous smile and moved his hands to speak.

"We share?"

"Read it"

The top recruit pushed the book over to him and left the table. 'All mine then, okay." He raised his hand to wave at Astrid's turned back. Stopping when the door closed with a resounding bang behind her.

Hiccups stomach rumbled, reminding why he had come inside in the first place. He took a couple of minutes to make himself dinner out of the leftovers from the dinner feast that night. There wasn't much left –they were Vikings after all- but it was better than nothing.

He carried his plate back to the table where the Book of Dragons lay, setting both himself and the plate down in front of the book. He had read the book of course, he'd read all the books on the island –Gods forbid Fishlegs ever found out about it though-. Right now though, he was looking for something specific. He lightly skimmed through the book while he ate, naming the dragons on the pages as he went.

Strike class. Fear class. Mystery class. Thunderdrum. Timberjack. Scauldron. Changewing. Gronckle. Zippleback. Skrill. Boneknapper. Whispering death. He only barely grazed over the rest of the book. At one point he spotted a Snaptrapper among the pages.

Finally, he stopped on the final page; it was completely blank save for a name and a small amount of facts. _Night Fury. Speed, unknown_. From what Hiccup had seen, they were extremely fast on the ground, who knew what they were like in the air. _Size, unknown_. They were large, but not as large as he had been expecting, maybe the size of a large wolf, or a Changewing, but considering they were the only one he had seen –and he didn't know their age-, Hiccup wasn't sure about actual size. _The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself_. Now that was just mean. But then again, with the mystery surrounding the species it was not unexpected, everyone on Berk called them that. _Never engage this dragon_. Too late for that. _Your only chance: hide and pray it does not find you_. Well, they found him, and Hiccup was honestly glad they did.

The section where the picture usually went was blank. Hiccup took out the sketch he had made back in the cove and dropped it on the book. It fit almost perfectly.

By the time Hiccup had finished eating, the storm had stopped. He dropped his plate back at the cleaning station for tomorrow's cooks to deal with. They couldn't punish him for it if they didn't know it was him after all.

On his way to the doors of the Great Hall, Hiccup collected the two books from the table. He stuffed notebook in one of his vest pockets and held on to the other one. On the way out of his vest, his hand met something hard and smooth. The dragon scales. Hiccup had completely forgotten about them.

Thunder rolled overhead as Hiccup ran back to his house. He managed to get inside just before the downpour began again. He was thankful that the Chief's house was so close to the Great Hall. He closed the door behind him, a soft click telling him it was secure.

It had been his idea to try to put a padlock on the inside of the door; it took him several tries before he was able to get it right though. The lock was set up between the door and the frame and attached to the handle. When the door reached the frame, the lock clicked itself into place, it was unlocked by twisting the door handle. He had installed it in the door to his workshop in the forge and it had taken Gobber ten minutes to figure out how it worked. Gobber had told the Chief about it and Hiccup's father had insisted on installing it in their house.

He took note of everything in the house, the other villagers might not have been able to get inside but who knew what a dragon could do. Nothing seemed different from when he had left; if a dragon had been inside, they definitely would have left a mark. A scratch on the wall. Something knocked off the bench. Creaking where there shouldn't be. There were no sounds or objects out of place in the house. No one was there.

Once he confirmed that he was alone, Hiccup let himself relax enough to realize how tired he was. It had been well into the night that he had walked into the Great Hall.

Hiccup made his way up the stairs and into his room. He put the Book of dragons on his desk and took off his boots. After setting the boots next to the bed, he reached underneath it and pulled out a large chest. He removed all the scales from his vest pockets and placed them inside the chest.

Other than the scales, the chest contained scales from many different types of dragons. They often left them scattered around the village after a raid. He had scales from Monstrous Nightmares, Hideous Zipplebacks, Gronckles, Deadly Nadders, Terrible Terrors, Whispering Deaths, Timberjacks, Scauldrons, Thunderdrums, Snaptrappers, just about every dragon that had ever attacked Berk during Hiccup's lifetime. And now, he could add Night Fury scales to his collection.

After the scales were all in the chest, Hiccup took off his vest and set it over the back of his desk chair. He lay down on his wood bed and pulled the blanket over himself. It occurred to him that the Night Fury in the cove probably hadn't had enough to eat. He would probably steal a fish from the harbour to feed them tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure when I'm going to introduce the new character, I only know that it'll happen before the first movie's final battle. so you guys have up till before then to help me decide. See you all next time!


	7. Nadder Training

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back! Happy New Year and Holidays to everyone! Turns out I have been motivated enough to write these holidays.
> 
> I just occurred to me while I was writing this that I haven't actually told you guys what Hiccup's scars look like. So, next chapter will follow immediately after what happens in this one and will describe what Hiccup's scars look like.
> 
> I've also forgotten to tell you that this whole time Hiccup has been wearing a cloth over his neck and the bottom half of his face to hide the scars there. The cloth is green and made of the same material as his shirt. So just imagine that for this entire series, unless otherwise specified, Hiccup is wearing something that looks vaguely like a bandana over his nose, mouth and neck.
> 
> With that done, enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: HTTYD belongs to its creators/owners

**Reference:**

"talking"

_'thinking'_

"sign language"

* * *

Hiccup woke early the next morning. He went through his morning routine: cursing the Gods for inventing light, taking two minutes to realise he needed to leave the bed and five for him to actually do it, putting on his vest and boots and making sure none of his inventions had gone haywire and destroyed something while he was asleep. After that, walking downstairs, cursing the person that made them, realising he made them, walking to the kitchen, pulling a chair up to the cupboards and grabbing a piece of stale bread out of them.

He was nearly out of bread, he would have to restock today. The Great Hall held breakfast feasts every day, it held feasts for every meal, but Hiccup tried not to go to them unless he had to. Hence, cupboards. Stoick probably noticed he did not attend the feasts, but as long as Hiccup hadn't died or destroyed something important, he usually didn't care where his son was.

He had not felt like encountering anyone that day, so he made his way to the training arena in the shadowed alleys behind the houses. After years of practice, he could almost seamlessly blend into the shadows. Sometimes he even did it accidentally. He had received too many bruises from Gobber when he had occasionally accidentally snuck up behind him.

* * *

At the other end of the village, Hiccup left the shadows and walked down the ramp into the arena. The walls were covered in burn marks and it looked like the fire from yesterday's battle with the Gronckle was still smouldering. Gobber was in the middle of setting up a tall wooden maze inside the ring. Astrid was sharpening her axe next to the pile of maze pieces. Fishlegs was helping Gobber set up, Hiccup couldn't hear him but the rapid movement of his mouth indicated that Fishlegs was probably going through all possible reasons for the maze. As if there's ever any reason to anything Gobber does. Hiccup could hear Snotlout and the twins walking in behind him.

Once Gobber was finished putting up his wall, he turned to face the teens that had just come in. Hiccup ducked out of Gobber's line of sight before he could call the boy over to help.

"Snotlout, Tuffnut, Ruffnut, help me with these." As it involved unnecessary effort, the teens protested.

"We're here to kill dragons, not build things."

"There's not any fun in not breaking things."

"Yeah! Astrid's not helping, why do we have to."

Astrid stopped sharpening her blade long enough to glare the protesters into submission. When she looked back down and resumed her work the three regained enough courage to glare at the top of her head. Then, they moved to the pile of wood and began helping set up.

Hiccup crept around along the edge of the ring, blending into the shadows once more. He left the shadows next to the pile of shields and picked the top one off. He sat down next the pile and tied the shield to his wrist before waiting.

When the maze was finished, Gobber called the recruits to him next to the pile of weapons –on the other side of the shields to where Hiccup was sitting- and stood with his back to the boy. Apparently, he hadn't seen Hiccup at all.

"Now, is everyone here? Where's Hiccup?" The other recruits looked around the arena for him. Snotlout mumbled something along the lines of 'I think I saw him come in.' He shook his head and stepped out of Gobber's shadow. Astrid spotted him first, her eyes widening when she saw him standing next to their teacher. Her lips quirked and she gave Hiccup an interested -almost respectful even- look. Maybe she was intrigued by his apparent ability to sneak up on at least to hardened warriors without either of them noticing. She kept silent though, probably wanted the others to figure it out. But really, who knew what went on in her head.

Fishlegs spotted him next. He glanced nervously between Hiccup and Gobber. _'He probably thinks it's a test.'_ Because of course Fishlegs would try to ignore his teacher's lack of sixth sense, an important thing in the life of a warrior. Gobber did have that sense. It had just gotten a little mislead after too many battles. Or too long around the smoke and heat in the forge, it might have fried his brain. There was a reason Hiccup spent as much time in the forest and caves as he did. Finally, Fishlegs decided to speak up.

"Um…Gobber-"

"Well, if he's not here then we'll have to start without him. Yes, Fishlegs?"

"He's right behind you." Gobber's hook swung around so fast that it might have chopped Hiccup's head off had he not ducked down in time.

"Ah, Hiccup, there you are. Now we can start." He ignored the irritated huff Hiccup sent his way. "Today you'll be fighting the Deadly Nadder. Your job is to use the maze to avoid being hit. Easy right, now fetch your shields and weapons."

While he was talking, Gobber had walked over to the pen holding the Deadly Nadder. Reaching the lever just as the recruits managed to gather their equipment. He turned to them, one hand on the lever and smiled. The only warning they got before he heaved the lever down and the dragon was set loose from their cage.

Immediately, the teens scattered. The twins ran into the middle of the maze, Fishlegs and Snotlout ran through the maze, turning at random in the hopes of losing the dragon. Hiccup and Astrid stayed close to the edge of the ring, staying just out of the dragon's sight.

A few minutes had passed since the match began and Gobber had made his way to the top of the ring so he could keep an eye on things, not that he could really do much if one of them was set on fire. Berk really needs to do something about that. Like an above-ground water system –made of pipes maybe- that had points for releasing water onto a fire. Hiccups finger itched to sketch a design. But, more importantly, how is there nothing on the Night Fury. Surely he can't have been the first one to ever see one up close. From what Hiccup had seen, there was so much that could be learnt about the species. Maybe there was a separate book? A sequel? A Night Fury pamphlet?

He shouted when a blast of fire hit the wall centimetres from his shield. He looked up to see the Deadly Nadder bearing down on him. He ran through the maze to avoid them.

"Focus, Hiccup! You're not even trying!" The teens continued to run through the maze while the dragon jumped over the top of the boards, trying to catch them. "Today is all about attack! Nadders are quick and light on their feet! Your job is to be quicker and lighter!"

From behind several layers of wood, Hiccup heard the Nadder fire, closely followed by Fishlegs' scream. They were immediately followed by a faint, "I'm really beginning to question your teaching methods" Hiccup was almost certain that Fishlegs should have questioned them much sooner.

Several minutes went by, filled with the sound of dragon fire, where Hiccup wondered if anyone had ever snuck up on a Night Fury. According to the stories, no one's ever met one and lived to tell the tale. But Hiccup had done just that. Surely, he couldn't have been the only Viking to survive an encounter.

"Get in there Hiccup!" Clearly Gobber had noticed that he was not participating. But really, as long as he survived, he was doing pretty well. And Hiccup was surviving.

"Hiccup." He turned his head to see that Astrid had been the source of the whisper. She and Snotlout were crouched down against one of the walls across from him. "Get down"

She leaned around the edge of the wall, and then ducked back quickly. Hiccup was about to move over when Snotlout jumped up and pushed Astrid behind him, ignoring the girls indignant shout.

"Watch out babe, I'll take care of this." Hiccup watched the boy toss his hammer at something. The dragon, obviously. A clang sounded and Snotlout's expression fell, he must have missed. He immediately turned to the scowling girl and started babbling at her. "The sun was in my eyes, Astrid!" his voice got fainter as the two ran from the chasing dragon. Hiccup melted into the shadows and the three ran right past. The perks of being practically invisible your whole life. "What do you want me to do, block out the sun? I could do…"

When Snotlout's voice could no longer be heard, Hiccup turned back to Gobber. Their teacher was keeping an eye on wherever the dragon went. As long as Hiccup knew where Gobber was looking, he'd know where the dragon was.

Had anyone seen a Night Fury napping? If they had then they'd have killed it then and there and no one would ever shut up about it. Were they nocturnal? It would make sense with their colouring.

The teens ran past Hiccup and Gobber's gaze snapped to right behind him.

"HICCUP!" He scrambled away from the wall just in time for it to lurch under Astrid's weight. He turned when Astrid called his name and had just enough time to raise his shield before the girl landed on him.

Astrid attempted to pull her axe out from where it was stuck in Hiccup's shield while the boy struggled to pull his arm out of the shield's strap. A few more seconds passed before the two managed to separate themselves. Just as the Deadly Nadder was about the attack them, Astrid swung her axe –Hiccups shield attached- into the side of their head, leaving them stunned.

Gobber came down into the ring to lock the dragon back up and the recruits turned to face Hiccup, who had by now sat up and brushed off the dust and debris that had landed on him. She pointed her now-shieldless axe at him.

"Is this some kind of joke to you? Our parents' war is about to become ours." She pushed the axe under Hiccup's cloth-covered chin. "Figure out which side you're on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of you anons asked if this would become a HTTYD X Brave thing. the answer to that is no. But if you guys want, I can write a side story (after I'm finished this one of course) about that. Or I could even make it Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons. But that's up to you guys.
> 
> See you next time!


	8. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astrid's thoughts on Hiccup and his un-Vikingness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did promise you guys that I'd tell you what Hiccup's scars look like. And here it is! This one's sort of an interlude, so it's a bit shorter than the other chapters.
> 
> Fair warning, I live in Australia and my brain is currently on the verge of boiling, so I can't promise this will be fantastic.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing here but the plot

Hiccup was, admittedly, amazing. He was the smartest Viking Astrid had ever seen and his sarcasm, dry humour and honesty made conversations much more fun – or they had, when they were younger, before Astrid started training and Hiccup joined Gobber in the forge. There probably wasn't a problem in the world that Hiccup couldn't solve.  
But his intelligence couldn't make up for his lack of skill.

He was fantastic at building things too. He invented things that Astrid could never even think of. She had come by the forge before just to watch the boy work on his weird inventions. He was passionate about them in a way she never saw in him anywhere else. There was also the fact that, despite his obviously below average strength, he was good at forging too. This was proven every time she passed the forge during the raids. She had never seen anyone -besides Gobber of course- fix and sharpen weapons as fast as him.  
But making weapons and wielding them were entirely different things.

And he was kind. It wasn't a very Viking trait, but his desire to help anything that breathed was nothing if not admirable. When they were much younger, when Astrid had an embarrassing amount of trouble with sign language, he was patient. Whenever she, or anyone else, had trouble, he slowed down for them, he spoke simply so people wouldn't have too much difficulty understanding him. She never told anyone, but she was grateful for that.  
But kindness would never let him become a dragon killer.

His most -and possibly only- Viking trait was his stubbornness. It was obvious that he wanted to become a dragon killer like the rest of them. It was also obvious that he couldn't do it traditionally. So he made do. He used his intelligence and crafting skill to try to kill them. His tenacity was impressive. His determination made her think he could be anything if he really wanted to, or, if he couldn't, redefine everything it meant to be that thing.  
But simple stubbornness wouldn't make him what he wasn't, and the definition of Viking hero wouldn't change anytime soon.

There were other things about him that impressed her. Like the way he weaved between vikings and dragons during raids, somehow managing to get through the whole thing without a single injury that wasn't from one of his inventions malfunctioning.  
There was also the way he always seemed to know where he was going. Astrid had come across him in the woods while she was training. He walked through the forest as if he knew it as well as the back of his hand.  
There was the way he sunk into the shadows. It was amazing, the fact that he could suddenly appear or disappear wherever there were shadows. He would make an excellent hunter with that skill. Or a spy.

But all of that. Everything that made Hiccup who he was. Was overshadowed by everything he was not. He was intelligent, but it meant that others did not understand him. People hated things they did not understand. His inventions were ingenious, but they did more harm than good. Astrid didn't have enough fingers to count how many times they had lost a raid because the boy had touched something he shouldn't have. Kindness will never make a killer. His stubbornness only made everything worse.

Things like these lead them to this point.

"Is this some kind of a joke to you? Our parents' war is about to become ours! Figure out which side you're on."

With her part said, Astrid turned and made to storm out. A sudden collection of loud gasps stopped her before she could start though. She looked up at everyone else scattered around the arena. They were looking at…Her? No, something behind her. Hiccup. She followed their gazes and nearly flinched at what she saw.

Hiccup's mask had fallen into his lap, Astrid must have torn it off when she turned around. What was left uncovered was, frankly, almost nauseating. An enormous scar ran from above his top left lip and down to his right collarbone. His entire neck, chin and mouth were covered in twisting burn scars. The scars on his mouth pulled his lips away from his teeth and left them in a permanent sneer. In short, he looked horrifying.

Hiccup noticed where they were staring and brought his hand to his face. When he felt scar tissue instead of cloth, his lips twisted down in a gruesome attempt at a scowl. He looked around for his mask and Astrid realised it was still attached to her axe. She plucked it of the end and handed it to the boy. He took it and stood, directing a hard glare at her.

He growled, low and unsettling, before reattaching his mask and walking out. No one tried to stop him. No one even moved until he was well out of sight.

Snotlout gulped.  
Fishlegs whimpered.  
The twins were silent.  
Astrid didn't know what to do, or think.

Gobber limped up to their cluster.  
"Hiccup knows what war is, what it does. That's why he's reluctant to join one."

It certainly explained a few things, but he had to join one. They all did. They had no choice. If there was a way to end the war, Astrid would do it without hesitation. Until then, she would fight. She hoped that Hiccup would too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go! hopefully you guys don't think this chapter is as badly written as I do. If any of you have suggestions on how to improve this, and my writing in general, I am happy to hear them.


	9. The Fish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School just started up again and I hate it. This chapter has been finished for a while, I just haven't had the time or internet connection to upload it until now. Enjoy!

  
**Disclaimer: I own Nothing**

* * *

Getting the fish was easy enough. As was reaching the cove. Finding a way in that would lead to ground level took longer, but it was still relatively easy. The real trouble was convincing himself to actually enter. Astrid pulling off his mask had only reminded him of what dragons could do. How much danger he was putting himself in just by coming here. But… they had had so many chances to attack him. They could have killed him when he set them free, or when he came by to draw them. They didn't. They must know that he doesn't want to hurt them. He's even bringing them food.

Steeling himself, Hiccup inched towards a gap in the cove walls. Once he was close enough to trow the fish into the cove, he did just that.

The fish lay, undisturbed, for a minute before Hiccup grew tired of waiting. Cautiously, he walked through the gap, shield held in front of him. The dragon probably would not hurt him. Better safe than sorry, though.

A force suddenly stopped him. His shield had become stuck to the rocks at the sides of the gap. Hiccup had walked right into it. He tugged on it. It didn't move. He pulled on it. It didn't budge. He pushed on it. Still nothing. It was astounding he had managed to get it _that_ stuck. The Gods just had to take every opportunity to make his life terrible, didn't they?

Switching tactics, Hiccup crawled under the shield. He stood and turned towards the shield. His back to the most dangerous creature on Midgard. He repeated his earlier actions. He tugged. It didn't move. He pushed. It didn't budge. Oh well. _'Guess I'll die_.'

It would not have done much in the face of a Night Fury. But it was the thought that counted.

When Hiccup turned back around, the fish was still there. Exactly where it landed. No dragon in sight.

Cautiously, he scooped up the fish by its gills -decidedly ignoring how gross that was- and searched the cove. No dragon. Had it escaped? Was it hiding?

A soft growl came from behind him. Hiccup turned to face it. The dragon was perched atop a rock, staring him down.

Well, that answered that question.

Hiccup stumbled back, instinctively bringing the fish closer to his chest. Then, remembering why he came back there, the boy offered the fish to the dragon.

They leapt off the boulder, crawling in a semi-circle around the boy until his back was to the rocks. Smart, making sure Hiccup was trapped and giving themselves room to move. Or to run. Or to kill him. Yay.

Once they were satisfied with their positioning, the dragon's gaze switched between Hiccup's face and the fish in his hand.

Gingerly, they began to move towards him. They opened their mouth. Then, Hiccup flinched. A response to the dragon raising its hackles and growling at him. No. at his waist.

Hiccup lifted the end of his vest to find out what had spooked the dragon. A knife. The knife he had used to cut the dragon free. It was one he had made. One he kept on him everywhere he went. He moved his hand to grab it. The growling increased. Definitely the knife then.

Here was a dilemma. His favourite knife or feeding a starving dragon. Well, a knife would not do much against a dragon anyway. He could always make a new one.

Ignoring the dragon's growled threat, Hiccup took the knife from his belt. He held it away from himself and dropped it. _I'm Not A Threat. I Don't Want To Hurt You._

The dragon relaxed slightly but continued growling. _Good, But Not Good Enough_. They tossed their head towards the lake in the middle of the cove. _Throw It In The Water._

Hiccup scooped the knife up with the toe of his boot, balancing it before kicking his leg and throwing it in the water. All the while watching the dragon in front of him.

They watched the knife's path through the air and into the lake. Once it landed in the water, they relaxed completely, sitting back with their eyes wide and their ears up.

Hiccup hesitated before offering them the fish once more.

Their eyes narrowed. Gingerly, they began to move towards him. They opened their mouth. Wait. Where were their teeth? He made a low, curious croon.

 _'Toothless? That's odd. I could have sworn you had-'_ Teeth snapped out of their gums and they lunged towards the fish in Hiccup's hands, just barely missing biting his hands off. _'Oh'_

They swallowed the fish whole. Once it was gone, they let out a pleased purr. Then, they seemed to realise something and turned back to Hiccup. They slinked towards him and he backed up, one of their steps to two of his. What did they want? Did they want more? He didn't have any more. Did they decide now was the time to eat him?

He tripped over a small stone and fell backwards, switching to crab crawling away from the advancing dragon. His blood ran cold when his back bumped against the boulder that had been behind him. A small whimper left his lips. _I Don't Have Any More._

The dragon paused on top of him, their expression changed to considering, as if they were debating something. They sniffed him once before their eyes rolled back in their head and they began making a choking, heaving noise.

Hiccup watched as they convulsed before throwing up a half-eaten fish and going still.

They both stared at each other before the dragon sat back on their rump. Hiccup looked at the fish, then, he looked at the dragon. The dragon looked at the fish, then, they looked at Hiccup. What did they want from him?

The dragon glanced at the fish, looked back at him, and swallowed. _Eat It._

Hiccup grimaced. _'Do I have to?'_ Well, he supposed it was either eat the fish or face the dragon's anger. Fish it was then.

Hesitantly, Hiccup lowered the scarf covering his mouth, watching for the dragon's reaction. Their eyes widened slightly and they leaned back minutely. Then, they softened their eyes and crooned. Was it an apology? They didn't do it. Were they sympathetic? It was a war; everyone had scars of some sort. Maybe they hated fighting just as much as Hiccup did, but just like him, it was all they knew.

Slowly, Hiccup raised the fish to his mouth. Gods, he was not going to enjoy this. He took a bite. He was right. He was always right about these kinds of things. It was awful, but he forced himself to hold the fish in his mouth.

He hummed –or as close to humming as he could get without lips-, hopefully in a way that would convey to the dragon that he enjoyed and had swallowed the disgusting thing in his mouth. It was awful, terrible, the second the dragon stopped looking at him he would spit it out. He was never going to look at a fish the same way again. No, he was _not_ exaggerating, it really was _that_ awful.

They were not fooled, a shame, really, that this dragon was smarter than most Vikings, and wouldn't they just _hate_ that fact. Were all dragons actually this smart? It was obvious that this one understood cues, expressions, and body language. They probably had object permanence too, if their making him get rid of his knife and the fact that they were currently encouraging him to swallow the revolting sea creature inside his mouth were enough evidence. Hiccup felt his expression become incredulous. _I've Taken A Bite, Isn't That Enough For You?_

The dragon deadpanned, and mimicked swallowing again. _Eat It._

Hiccup sighed around the fish. _'I guess I have no choice then.'_ He steeled himself, once it was out of his mouth he could wash out the taste, so, really, this was a good idea. He decided to completely ignore the implication that putting the fish in his mouth wasn't a horrible idea in the first place.

He brought a hand to his mouth to stop himself from regurgitating and swallowed. Wow. That actually managed to feel worse that having a fish in his mouth for over a minute, a real accomplishment on both his and the fish's part.

The dragon was still staring at him. Definitely smart if they knew what a trick was. The boy opened his mouth, filled with fish slime and dragon slobber, to show the dragon that he had not deceived them. _See? No Fish._

They nodded and gurgled. _Good, Wasn't It?_

Hiccup closed his mouth. _'No, it really wasn't'_ But… while the fish hadn't been nice, the past couple of days had been the most interesting thing to happen to him in years. If he got to spend more time with this mysterious, amazing, fascinating creature, he might start to enjoy it. The thought made him smile, the corners of what was left of his lips raised themselves crookedly, it pulled at his scars and showed off his gums, but he was glad that he could even remember how to smile, genuinely at least, it had been a long time since he'd last had a reason to.

Hiccup was distracted from his thoughts when the dragon narrowed their eyes at him. Where they angry at something? No, that look was more confused, more curious. Their eyes widened, their lips quirked up, where they doing what he thought they were, their lips pulled away from their mouth, showing off their toothless gums, wow, okay, yes they were.

Hiccup watched in astonishment as the dragon mimicked his smile, it was awkward and clearly forced, but it was a _smile_. _'Fishlegs would have a field day with this.'_ Then another though came to him.

The dragon's scales were a beautiful, almost iridescent blueish-black they had stripes and spots like a Monstrous Nightmare. Or the tigers and jaguars that he had heard come from the mainland. They certainly looked like how cats were described. Lithe, strong, vicious, untrusting, playful, graceful, swift, intelligent, wild, so many contradicting traits, somehow they all managed to apply to the dragon in front of him.

Travellers and traders had told tales of those that had tamed cats, gained their trust and loyalty, and befriended them. Maybe he could do something like that.

Hesitantly, Hiccup lifted from his seated position into a crouch and slowly, but eagerly –and isn't that weird, that he can be hesitant and eager at the same time, but he managed it, lucky him, he really was talented-, he reached out his hand to the dragon's snout.

The second they realised what he was doing, their imitation-smile fell. The growled, a warning, there was peace for now but there were boundaries. Reasonable. His hand flinched back to his chest and they turned, running to the other side of the cove.

Well, he would just have to try again later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also! my school has decided that ao3 is a dangerous site and has blocked access to it, so I won't be able to publish anything until I get home. That is relevant because I'll most likely forget and might end up having massive gaps between chapters and the two chapters posted at the same time or something similar.


	10. A Bond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is up quick! I had a free period and all my homework was done so i worked on this instead of doing anything more productive. I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Warning: Blood. Lots of it.  
> I honestly have no clue what was going on in my head when I wrote it. But it was raining and my least favourite class was up next. So I guess that sort of explains it. Or I just like blood more than I originally thought.

Hiccup decided to stay in the cove. Oddly enough, he felt safer with a dragon that just threatened him than with the other villagers. That said something about all three parties.

He looked over to where the Night Fury had burned a patch of ground and lied down on it. They were probably sleeping. Hiccup didn't know whether to be honoured or hurt that they didn't consider him enough of a threat to even have to keep an eye on. He wasn't _that_ helpless!

Although… if they were asleep, he could try to touch them. As quietly as he could, Hiccup edged towards the prone dragon. Once he was close enough, he reached a hand out towards their tail.

However, before he could make contact with the scales, the tail was thrown up, revealing bright green eyes looking at him in annoyance. Hiccup shot up, spun around and walked lopsidedly away from the dragon. Behind him, he heard the dragon get up with a huff and walk away. He turned around at the sound of creaking. What was that dragon doing?

As it turned out, they were climbing a tree. Hiccup watched as they dug their claws into the trunk and heaved themselves up. Once they were level with a relatively strong-looking branch, they moved their claws to cling to it. Then, they swung their body up to wrap their tail around the branch. When their tail was secure, they let go and let themselves hang down like a bat. They shot him a look before wrapping their wings around themselves and going still. Huh.

Considering the dragon was preoccupied –and Hiccup wasn't going to dare try to touch them again-, he decided to do his own thing. But what to do?

Hiccup remembered the cave system under the island, the one he spent most of his free time in before he met the dragon. He also vaguely remembered the tunnels coming out in this cove. Only problem was, he didn't remember where. If he could find it though, he'd be able to sneak between the village and the cove in nearly half the time and without getting caught.

Getting up, Hiccup made his way to the edges of the cove. Dragging both his hands and his eyes across the rock to search for an opening. It was half an hour before he found it. Behind a giant tree, whose roots covered the rocks surrounding it. Looking at it, Hiccup recalled pretending the hollow made by the roots was a dragon's nest, and he the dragon. He would scratch at the ground and growl at random intervals. He had scared dozens of bugs when he jumped on anything that moved.

Hiccup crouched down to look inside. It was smaller than he remembered –big enough to hold both him and the Night Fury, with more room left over, not that that meant anything-. He was also bigger than he was then. There were still bite marks from when he wanted to know if his jaw was strong enough to break the roots. The answer was no. there were extra scuff and burn marks that weren't there the last time he was there. Some Terrible Terrors had probably moved in at some point.

With his mission over, Hiccup stood back up and wondered what to do next. The sun was just below the horizon, casting half of the cove into shadows and the other half into a soft orange light.

The dragon… actually, he couldn't keep calling them 'the dragon' or 'the Night Fury', he would have to name them something. Something unique. Something that implies character and individuality. Something descriptive so he wouldn't forget. Something like… Toothless. Yes, Toothless was a good name. No one would ever think to name a dragon Toothless, even if the dragon was toothless. He really was a genius.

Anyway, Toothless was still asleep. He could try getting close to them again. They looked comfortable though –even in that weird position- and he didn't want to wake them. He took a step forward and his foot bumped against something laying on the ground. He looked down. It was a stick. Well, he could always practice his drawing skills.

He picked the stick up and walked over to a large rock sticking out of the ground, not far from where the dragon was sleeping. He sat down and put his stick to the sand. What could he draw? What was there to draw? Drawing from reference was always easier, but there wasn't really anything to draw. He could only really draw faces from memory, so that's what he did. First he drew Gobber, the Stoick, then Astrid, the twins, Snotlout, Fishlegs, Gothi. After he had finished drawing each face, he rubbed it out so he could draw the next one. After he erased Gothi's face, he ran out of ideas.

…He could try to draw Toothless from reference. He picture the dragon's face in his head. Sharp, elegant, this would be the first time he drew a Night Fury's face, with or without reference, so he was probably going to be wrong somewhere. Oh well, he would just have to try his best.

Carefully, he dragged the stick through the dirt at his feet. Trying to get the lengths and angles right. He was doing reasonably well. He hunched when he heard heavy footsteps coming up behind him. Pretending to ignore Toothless, Hiccup continued to draw the dragon behind his shoulder.

Toothless made a low croon. Was he curious about what Hiccup was drawing? Did he recognise it as himself? When he finished his drawing, he turned to face the dragon, but they were walking away on their hind legs. What were they doing?

Hiccup watched as Toothless walked up to the tree he was sleeping in before, grabbed a low-hanging branch with his teeth, and pulled. The branch detached from the trunk with a sickening crack. And Toothless walked back to where Hiccup was sitting. Was Toothless going to draw something too?

Toothless dug the branch into the sand and began dragging it around in looping circles in front of Hiccup. Occasionally they looked back at him in a scrutinising way before continuing to draw. They _were_ trying to draw. They were trying to draw him!

Eventually, Toothless sat back on their haunches and nodded proudly at the mess of scribbles in front of them. Hiccup stood up to get a better look. It didn't look anything like him. But it was a _drawing_! That was _amazing_! He took a step to exit the mass of scribbles but froze when Toothless growled at him.

He looked down to seen that he had stepped on one of the lines. He lifted his foot. The growling stopped. He put his foot back down. The growling continued. He lifted his foot. The growling stopped. He put his foot back down. The growling continued. He lifted his foot. The growling stopped. He put his foot down without touching the line. Toothless purred. Hiccup purred back.

Following Toothless' instructions, Hiccup weaved across the lines in an odd dance of spinning and twisting movements. Once he left the scribbles, he let out a breath and looked up. Hang on. Where was Toothless? Hot breath on the back of his neck answered his question.

He spun around to face the most dangerous creature on Midgard. Toothless looked down at him curiously, their eyes soft.

Maybe….

Hiccup reached a hand out to Toothless' snout. They growled a warning.

Hiccup decided something in that moment. He didn't just want to spend time with Toothless. Didn't just want to learn about him. He wanted to be friends with them. He wanted them both to trust each other and play and learn things about each other. He wanted a place where wars and fighting didn't exist. And he knew he could get that with Toothless, who right now, was just as alone as he was. He had a feeling Toothless felt the same way too.

So, decision made, Hiccup closed his eyes, turned away from Toothless and reached out his hand. He trusted them, with his life. Now it was up to them to trust him too. It was their decision. Hiccup tensed at the feeling of breath on his palm. Then, he felt scales, they weren't how he imagined them to feel. He though they would be cold and hard. But they weren't. They were warm, soft, and grooved. He could feel each individual scale and the strength and protection they offered.

He relaxed, letting out a shaky breath, and opened his eyes. Toothless, realising the spell was broken, stayed pressed against Hiccup's hand for another second before pulling away. They hesitated, as if considering something, before taking a deep breath, like they were drawing strength for something, and gently taking the edge of his thumb in their teeth. _Do You Trust Me?_

Whatever they were planning on doing, it would obviously hurt, or they wouldn't involve teeth. He had already trusted Toothless with his life, and they trusted him back. If Toothless wanted to do this, he would let them. He nodded and relaxed his hand. _Yes, I Do._

**-Blood starts here-**

Toothless purred, eyes showing an expression that Hiccup recognised as grateful –you don't see it often in Vikings-, before they bit down on Hiccup's thumb. He felt a flash of pain and he whimpered as blood began to spill from the wound. Toothless purred reassuringly and started lapping at the wound. They licked until the blood clotted and dried inside the cut. Once there was nothing left to drink, Toothless turned to their tail and began clawing at something on the end.

When Hiccup looked closer, he saw that there was a massive wound, on the opposite side to their tailfin. It looked about a couple of days old. They must have got it when he shot them down. Hiccup crooned sadly. _'I'm sorry I hurt you.'_ Toothless stopped scratching at the wound to nuzzle into Hiccups side; it was as if he knew what Hiccup was thinking. With one final, scratch, the wound burst open and blood began pouring from it.

Toothless looked back up at him and gestured their head towards the flowing blood. Hiccup growled, confused, and a bit grossed out. _'You want me to drink it?'_ Toothless nodded and gestured again. Okay, that dragon definitely knew what he was thinking. If they wanted him to do it…

Hiccup kneeled next to Toothless' tail and cupped his hands beneath the wound, letting the blood fill them before bringing it to his lips and drinking. When his hands were empty, Hiccup looked back at Toothless. They nodded encouragingly at him. _'This is really not a normal thing to be doing.'_ The dragon chuffed, clearly their version of laughter and lifted their tail so it was easier to reach.

Hiccup continued like that, cupping his hands under the wound and bringing them to his lips too drink, until the blood stopped running and the wound finally clotted and dried out.

**-Blood ends here-**

He looked down at his hands. They were red. Dragons bled red. It was obvious to any dragon killer, but at this moment, it made Hiccup realise something.

Dragons were considered something dark and evil. Something undead, not quite right. In all the stories, they bled black, like the giants, or Nidhogg. They bleed red. The same colour as every other animal. Like wolves and sheep and humans. They had families, friends. Every single one of them was an individual. And for 300 years people had been treating them like monsters.

_'You're not monsters, you're just like us.'_

_ 'You're right, we're not monsters, I can see now that neither are humans' _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guessed it folks, I'm cliche as hell. See you next chapter.


	11. New Tail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back! Did you miss me? I've actually written up to chapter 11 (13 chapters in all) so I'm going to start posting these weekly until I run out of chapters to upload. So until next time, enjoy!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

* * *

** Key: **

"Norse"

' _Human thoughts'_

_'Toothless thoughts'_

**"Draconian"**

**"Sign"**

* * *

'You are right, we are not monsters. I can see now that neither are humans.'

Hiccup's eyes shot to the dragon in front of him. _'You just talked.'_

The dragon chuffed again. From their voice, they were clearly male. That was one question answered. Now for the other.

_'I did not speak. You heard my thoughts. Just as I can hear yours.'_

That must have been what the weird drinking-each-other's-blood thing was. It made a connection between them. Hiccup bent down, began washing off his face and hands in the lake, continuing the conversation mentally. _'But… Why?'_

Toothless used his wing to gesture to Hiccup's throat. _'I have noticed your scar. The way it shapes your voice. You can speak with us. By Connecting, I can teach you how to speak our tongue. You can help me bring peace to both our Kin-Kinds.'_

That… was actually an amazing idea. Now that he had met Toothless, Hiccup knew that he wanted to learn everything about dragons. And he wanted to stop the war. If everyone knew what dragons were really like, maybe they'd stop fighting. There was only one problem.

_'I can't speak Norse. I mean I understand it, but my mouth isn't the right shape.'_

Toothless inspected Hiccup's mouth. _'I have spent a long time watching humans. Very little of their speaking comes from their lips. If you can make the sound, you can speak with them.'_

Hiccup considered the dragon's words. He was right. It was just that Hiccup had never tried it. That was a lie. According to Gobber, he had spoken when he was younger. He had sounded like some sort of demonic beast and Stoick forced him to stop immediately. But if he practiced, learnt to speak Norse while he learned to speak to dragons, maybe he could, eventually, be able to talk –almost- like a Viking.

A cold wind blew into the cove. Hiccup shivered. Both looked up, realising how late it was. Toothless looked back at him. _'Go back to your Nest. I am sure they are missing you. We can talk more of this tomorrow. And please bring more food.'_

Hiccup sighed, and walked towards to opening in the cove walls. Tying his mask back on as he went. He could have used the tunnels, but he hadn't used that section in a long time. Part of it might have caved or he could get lost. He'd explore later. _'They've never missed me, that won't change. I'll see you tomorrow and I'll bring more fish.'_

* * *

Hiccup ran through into village and right into Gobber, literally. As Hiccup picked himself off the ground, Gobber -surrounded by sniggering teens- beamed at him.

"Hiccup! There you are! I was wondering where you got off to. Come on, we're having a bonfire dinner on one of the watchtowers. A tradition for the dragon training recruits."

Gobber pushed Hiccup over to the other teens, who in turn pushed him to the back of their group. He stumbled and fell into step a half a metre behind Astrid, who looked at him suspiciously, or maybe her expression was curious and that's just what her face looked like.

"Where _did_ you go? What were you doing in the forest?"

He briefly considered telling her, showing her that there was no point to the war. Because dragons weren't what everyone though they were. Astrid was top of the class though. She had trained almost every day since she was born. She thought dragons were monsters and he wouldn't be able to convince her otherwise. Maybe if he could talk. But he couldn't. So he couldn't tell her anything.

Instead, he signed **"secret"** to her.

She clearly wasn't happy with that. Her expression became incredulous before she huffed angrily and walked faster to catch up with the others. Hiccup let her.

Five minutes later, they were all crouded around a fire on the top of one of the secondary watchtowers. Gobber was telling them all a story that Hiccup himself had heard hundreds of times before.

"-And with one twist, he took my hand and swallowed it whole. I saw the look on his face, I was delicious." Honestly, that was probably a lie. Hiccup couldn't imagine anyone enjoying a massive lump of fat. He certainly wouldn't. "He must have passed the word because it wasn't another month before another one of them took my leg." That was coincidence Gobber. nothing more.

Fishlegs, whom had been listening raptly to a story that _definitely_ didn't deserve that much attention, decided to give them his very… odd input.

"Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside a dragon?" No Fishlegs, it happened all the time. "Like, if your mind was still in control of it," Hiccup did _not_ like where this was going, "you could have killed the dragon from the inside," Fishlegs, no, "by like crushing its heart or something." Fishlegs, that is both gross and biologically incorrect.

Snotlout decided that this point was the perfect time to be a suck-up.

"I swear I'm so angry right now. I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot." _Please_ Snotlout, just stop. "I'll chop of the legs of every dragon I fight. With my face." He was going to eat their legs? Bite them? Hiccup decided not to put any more brain power into figuring out what went on in Snotlout's head. Probably nothing with a side of bootlicking. And maybe Astrid.

Gobber grunted and tore a wing of the chicken he was cooking, waving it at them. "uh-uh-uh, it's the wings and the tail you really want. If it can't fly, it can't get away." Hang on. "A downed dragon is a dead dragon." …Wait.

Toothless couldn't fly. If he could, he would have left the cove as soon as he realised a human knew where he was. He only had one tail fin. On the other side though… that wound! He couldn't fly because he had lost one of his tail fins! He was going to die because Hiccup shot him down.

No, he wouldn't. Because Hiccup was going to help him. He had fabric and tools back in his hollow. He didn't have a forge but Toothless could breathe fire. He would find a way to make that dragon fly again if it was the last thing Hiccup did.

Decision made, Hiccup stood up from his seat and blended into the shadows, he couldn't risk anyone following him. As he ran down the stairs, he heard the faint sound of the other teens conversing. It was something about Tuffnut's left side. Whatever, at least they hadn't noticed his departure.

Barely anyone was still awake, so it was easy to run through the village without being caught. The lookouts were used to him running around on errands for Gobber at odd hours, so if any of them saw him, they wouldn't be suspicious.

Once he reached the forge, Hiccup took a candle from the wall and lit it. Carefully, he walked through the forge, trying not to trip over anything that Gobber had left scattered on the floor. He made his way to the back room, the one he used for his blueprints, schematics and inventions.

Placing the candle on the desk in front of him, he took his notebook out of his vest pocket and flipped it open to the page with Toothless on it. He saw where he had erased his left tail fin. Hiccup drew it back in. then, he flipped the page and began drawing something else. Schematics, he didn't have the exact measurements, he would have to go to Toothless for that, but he figured out what he needed, and how to make it work.

* * *

When he finished the design, Hiccup nodded to himself, collected the things he needed, and left to go to his house. It was possible Gobber wanted to pick something up from the forge, or would notice the light and heat. He couldn't risk using it, he would have to use Toothless' fire in the morning. He'd bring the dragon a whole basket of fish as payment.

* * *

The morning came quickly. Possibly because he stayed up so late. He had to sneak into the fish stores to get what he needed. Would be much more suspicious if he took an entire basket of fish from the boats than when he only took one.

He didn't know what Toothless liked. So, he packed at least one of everything. He took a basket from the wall and filled it. Salmon, Cod, Char, Trout, Gunnel, and to top it off, an eel that either no one noticed or no one could be bothered to throw out. Probably the latter.

* * *

Before he went to the cove, Hiccup stopped by his hollow. Crawling through the tree tunnel was substantially more difficult when trying to balance a basket of fish on your back. When he was in the clearing, he put the basket down and brought out his notebook to check what he needed.

He picked up an old wooden bucket that he had found on the beach once and collected everything he needed from various ditches close to the cliff walls. Ropes, string, enough metal that he could melt and shape it into what he wanted, a hammer, nails, and finally, fabric. He'd need to stitch pieces together, but it would work.

Once he had everything he needed inside the bucket, he picked it up with one hand and tossed the fish basket onto his back with the other. Now he could help Toothless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you next week! Comments are welcome and appreciated.


	12. Making a Tail

Hiccup mentally called out Toothless' name as soon as he entered the cove. Toothless, who had been sleeping, perked up and ambled towards him. He dropped the basket and it fell open on the ground.

 _'I've brought breakfast. I hope you're hungry.'_ Toothless sniffed at the spilled fish.

 _'This is a lot. Why have you brought so much, not that I am complaining. And what is in your paws?'_ Hiccup chuckled.

 _'Well, it's been a while since you ate anything right? I also needed your help with something.'_ Toothless, in the middle of inhaling the fish in the basket, flicked his tail to gesture to the bucket in Hiccup's hands.

 _'Is that what you need help with?'_ Hiccup nodded and placed the bucket on the ground, taking its contents and spreading them on the ground in front of him and taking his notebook out of his vest. Toothless looked up from his food to watch him.

 _'Yeah. I noticed that you couldn't fly. I realised it was because you were missing a tail fin.'_ Toothless brought his tail up to his face and watched dejectedly as the wing opened and closed. _'So, I thought I'd fix that.'_ Toothless dropped his tail and violently turned his head to look at Hiccup. The human held up his notebook to the dragon. It was open on the page of his schematics for the artificial tail fin. Toothless' eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped, or it certainly looked like it did.

 _'Is that what I believe it is?'_ Hiccup started sorting the materials into piles. Things for the 'skeleton', things for the 'skin' and the gears that would attach it to the tail and allow the fin to open and close.

 _'If you believe it's a new tail for you to fly with, then you'd be right. I need some help with making it though.'_ Toothless leaned forward eagerly.

 _'I would be delighted to help you.'_ Hiccup smiled behind his mask and nodded. He then handed the dragon pieces of bent metal inside a stone bowl.

 _'Thank you. Do you think that you could melt these down? I'm not sure how hot your fire is.'_ He himself took measurements of Toothless' tail, marking them down in his notebook, and picked up the fabric, needles and string. Toothless considered the metal in front of him before looking back up at Hiccup.

 _'I can certainly try. I have never melted anything before. If I cannot do it, I know that a Spiked-Tail or Liquid-Flame-Skin c_ _an._ _'_ Hiccup stopped sewing the tail to give Toothless a baffled look.

 _'What are those?'_ Toothless met his gaze from where he was scooping the metal around with his claws.

 _'They are Kin. The Spiked-Tails can throw the spikes from their tails and the Liquid-Flame-Skins can light their scales on fire. They are both common during raids on your Nest.'_ He must have been talking about Deadly Nadders and Monstrous Nightmares. It had never actually occurred to Hiccup that dragons would have names for each other. Hang on. He had been calling Toothless 'Toothless' this whole time. Did he have a name?

'What do the other dragons call you?' Toothless tilted his head questioningly.

 _'What are-'_ Toothless attempted to mimic the sound from Hiccup's mind, but only really ended up with a growl that sounded vaguely like, 'drrrgs.' Hiccup put down his materials and turned his body to face Toothless. The dragon did the same. Apparently, they were going to make a whole conversation about this.

 _'Dragon is our word for your species. And we call-'_ Hiccup tried to match the sounds Toothless made but all he could do was growl. Toothless chuffed a laugh at him as he kept trying and failing to pronounce the names of the dragon types. Eventually, he took pity in Hiccup and gave him some advice.

 _'Say them out loud. Then make the same sound inside your head. Repeat after me._ **Spiked-Tail and Liquid-Flame-Skin** _.' _Hiccup repeated, but it wasn't perfect. They went back and forth until Hiccup was able to pronounce their names without mistakes. _'Good, now say them inside your mind.'_

 _'Spike-Tails and Liquid-Flame-Skins. I did it! We call Spike-Tails Deadly Nadders, and we call Liquid-Flame-Skins Monstrous Nightmares. What do they call you?'_ Toothless huffed and lay down, curling his tail around his body.

 _'I had forgotten about that question. My Kin call my kind Purple-Fire-Night-Skins.'_ Hiccup repeated the word a few times out loud before saying it in his head.

 _'Purple-Fire-Night-Skins? We call you Night Furies. But I wasn't really asking that, I was asking what your name is.'_ Toothless looked at him as if he had sprouted wings right there.

 _'Most Tongue-Sharers do not have names. Only those of the highest standing in a Nest have names.'_ That was odd. Hiccup couldn't really imagine nearly no one having a name. he knew that sometimes slave owners referred to their slaves by number. But, in a way, that was still a name! It was a way of referring to a specific individual. It must be hard trying to find someone specific or get their attention. He told Toothless this. _'I suppose that that is just one of the differences our kinds have. What do your Kin call you Hatchling?'_ Hiccup sighed sadly.

 _'My name is Hiccup.'_ He laughed when Toothless made a hiccuping noise. _'Yes, that kind of Hiccup. For my people it's what you call the runt, the mistake, the one you don't expect to last the year.'_ Toothless stood and walked over to Hiccup. Careful of the scattered materials, he curled around the boy and licked the top of his head.

 _'It is clear that you have survived much longer. You also do not seem like a mistake to me. You are more intelligent than many Tongue-Sharers that I know.'_ Hiccup chuckled and cuddled up to Toothless in thanks.

 _'You're a lot smarter than most of the Vikings I know too. Since you don't have a name. I sort of gave you one. Is that okay?'_ Toothless purred and rested his head on the ground.

_'It is fine. It is an honour. What name have you given me?'_

_'It's kind of silly really. But I wanted something to call you and it fit. Your name is Toothless.'_ Toothless tried to say it through the link, but he couldn't do it.

'It does fit. I do not mind. I like it. Do you have a sound for it?' Hiccup considered the question. If he wanted to tell other dragons Toothless' name, he'd have to make a sound for it. He had crooned and yelped when he had first seen Toothless' ability. He mixed the sounds together. It could work. He repeated the sounds out loud a strange mix between a croon and a yelp that sounded more like a short, slightly aggressive purr.

 **"Toothless"** Toothless repeated the word.

 _'I like it. Thank you for giving me a name Hiccup. Now, let us go back to giving me a tail.'_ Hiccup nodded and picked up the fabric while Toothless walked back over to the metal scraps.

* * *

Hiccup was in to middle of connecting the tail's frame, Toothless watching him eagerly, when he remembered what the dragon had said. Tongue-Sharers. Was that their word for dragons? Why? He asked Toothless.

 _'We speak the same tongue. There are so many kinds of what you call drrrgs, that the only thing that every one of us has in common, that other Kin-Kinds do not have, is our tongue.'_ Kin-Kinds must have meant species. Wait a minute.

 _'If anyone who speaks the same language as you is a dragon, will that make me a dragon when you're finished teaching me?'_ Toothless nodded, eyes switching between his tail and the one in Hiccup's hands. Probably comparing them.

 _'We would know that your Kin-Kind is different to ours, but it would not matter. We will see you as one of us. And treat you as much. We will share our food and our nests with you. It is clear that you are a hatchling, so we will care for you and everyone in the Nest will help to raise you.'_ Huh. That was better than what Berk had done for him his whole life. To have someone care about you unconditionally just because you're there… he could barely imagine it.

* * *

Hiccup had just started to fit the fabric over the frame when Toothless, whom had gone back to eating, roared, his voice exploding through their connection.

 _'Danger! Danger! Danger!'_ Hiccup stood up and walked over to where Toothless was. The dragons was hissing at the eel he had put in the basket. Experimentally, he picked the eel up and held it towards Toothless. His mental shouting increased. _'DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!'_ Hiccup tossed the eel into the lake and wiped his hands on his vest.

 _'You really don't like eel do you?'_ Toothless huffed and inspected the rest of the basket for more eels. _'Don't worry, I only put one in there. Honestly, I don't like them either.'_ Toothless relaxed and picked up a fish to chew on. _'Sorry, how do I saw sorry in Draconian anyway?'_ He was going to call it that until he found a better word for it.

 _'The Slither-Fish is poisonous to our Kin-Kind. The only exception is the Slither-Fish-Eaters. They enjoy the taste. You would not have met any, they do not come to this Small-Land often.'_ Toothless made a show of retching and Hiccup laughed. Right. Never give an eel to a dragon. Unless it's whatever a Slither-Fish-Eater is. Got it. _'And it is pronounced_ **apologies** _.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed :) See you next time. Comments are welcome.


	13. First Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Quarantine is messing up my sense of time and I wasn't sure when the last time I updated was. So, I'm going to update now. I was planning on using the quarantine to write more, but I am lacking in motivation so that hasn't really worked out... Anyway, enjoy!

**Key:**

**"Draconian"**

**"Sign Language"**

_ 'Toothless' Connection' _

_'Hiccup's Connection/thoughts'_

"Norse"

_Implied Words_

* * *

Toothless finished eating his fish at the same time that Hiccup finished putting the tail together. _'Well bud, do you wanna try this out?'_ Toothless nodded his assent but gave him a baffled look.

 _'What is… brrd?'_ Hiccup fidgeted. The word had just slipped out of his mind and, of course, Toothless didn't know slang.

 _'Uh… it means friend.'_ Toothless' expression didn't change. _'Um.. I don't really know how to explain it. It's someone that you spend a lot of time with. You're not related by blood, but you trust and care about each other. You play and talk and spend time together just because you can. Because you care about them.'_ He looked down at the fin in his hands sadly. ' _I've never had someone like that. It just sort of slipped out.'_ Toothless nodded in understanding.

 _'You are talking about Wing-Mates. I am happy to be your Wing-Mate if you agree to be mine. I also have never had one before. The only one I have ever been close to are my Clutch-Mates.'_ Hiccup paused and looked up from where he was tying the fin on to Toothless' tail, asking what that word meant. _'We were hatched from the same clutch.'_ Hiccup remained confused.

_'What's a clutch?'_

_'Our Dam laid our eggs on the same day, so we are Clutch-Mates.'_ Dam probably meant mother so... Siblings! Toothless had siblings!

It was unexpected. Especially since there had only ever been one Night Fury spotted over Berk. Maybe they were a solitary species.

 _'Where are they now?'_ Toothless made the dragon version of a sigh and curled into himself.

 _'Dead. Your kin killed them long ago. When I was still so young that I had no claws. All that is left of my Pack, of my Kin-Kind, are a single egg and myself. I do not know when they will hatch. I do not know if they ever will.'_ Oh. So Toothless was the last Night Fury. He was alone. Like Hiccup. Only Hiccup wasn't the last Viking, so he didn't really know what it felt like.

He wanted to ask how they died. It was famously near impossible to kill a Night Fury and he was sure he would have heard of someone that had at some point. Before he met Toothless, Hiccup would have bragged to everyone he came across about killing a Night Fury.

Instead, he asked a different question. One that changed the subject to something lighter.

_'Do they have a name? The Hatchling in the egg.'_

_'No. You are welcome to give them one. I am sure that they would love it.'_ That gave him free reign then. Toothless had said that young Night Furies were clawless… Clawless! It certainly gave the names a theme. And no one would think to name a Night Fury 'Clawless', so it was unique. Toothless and Clawless.

Now they needed a sound to go with the name. Something similar to Toothless'. He tried the sound he made for Toothless' name, replacing the yelp with a chuff. It sounded like a breathy, throaty growl. It worked. He repeated the sound to Toothless. Then told him what it meant through their Connection.

' _Clawless. Funny. I like it. I am sure that they will as well, when they hatch.'_

By now, the artificial fin was fully secured onto Toothless' tail. Hiccup checked how well the two fins matched. Almost perfectly. Wait. He watched Toothless' fin move while the other one stayed on the ground. They needed a way to control it. Oh well. He'd come up with something later. Now was the time to see if it worked.

' _We ready? I'm gonna have to sit on your tail to make sure the fins match each other. We can find something to make them match automatically. But we need to see if this works before we can do anything more with it.'_ Toothless' nodded, waited for Hiccup to get secure, and spread his wings. Hiccup held the fabric fin in one hand, ready to adjust it when need be.

Then, Toothless flew.

Flying wasn't quite like he had imagined it, though he hadn't imagined ever flying while he was clinging for life to a dragon's tail. The wind was strong and the cold hurt his face. He felt weightless and heavy at the same time. He felt distant from everything. From the village, from his father and Gobber and everyone else in the village. He felt free. He glanced up -or down, considering Toothless was currently flying upside down- and saw the trees pass by beneath them. He could see the forest and the mountains. The hills and slopes. Even the cove and his hollow! It was amazing. Hiccup wanted to stay up there forever.

They curved back down and flew over the cove. Right as they were passing over the lake, Hiccup lost his grip on the tail fin and both of them went crashing into the water.

When they had both resurfaced, Hiccup cheered and jumped in the water while Toothless watched, clearly unimpressed with falling into a lake.

 _'We did it! It works! Soon, you'll be able to fly again!'_ He turned to Toothless and smiled. His mask had been knocked off his face on impact with the water, revealing his scars, and his smile. Toothless gave his own gummy smile in response.

 _'That is good. I take it that you enjoyed flying._ ' Hiccup nodded violently and, having found his mask, tied the piece of cloth back up to cover his face. Toothless tilted his head at the boy 'You do not have to have that here, or at all when with other dragons. Scars, especially battle scars, are something to be proud of. No matter what affect it has on your appearance. They are a sign that, although the world is hard and cruel, we are survivors.' Huh. Hiccup had never really looked at it that way. Battles scars were trophies, yes, but not when they changed the way you look in such a drastic way. Hiccup had often wondered what he would have looked like without his scar. Would he have been handsome? Probably not. But it would look better than he does now.

He looked up at the sky. The sun was high up, not at all covered by the trees and high walls of the cove. Damn it! He was late!

He ran out of the lake, picking up the eel on the way out, it would have been mean to keep it there. He rushed out of the cove, calling to Toothless through their Connection.

 _'I need to go back to the village! I'll see you tomorrow, and I'll bring some things with me to help with the tail!'_ Toothless roared goodbye and translated through their Connection. Hiccup repeated the roar back to him. **"Goodbye"**

* * *

Hiccup turned up at the arena wet, with the eel stuffed underneath his vest. He had tried to wring the water out of his clothes on his way through the forest. It worked, to an extent. His hair was still dripping, though. The others gave him odd looks. He quickly signed an excuse.

 **"Fell"** Astrid raised an eyebrow.

"Into a river?"

 **"Lake."** The other recruits snickered.

They were prevented from continuing the conversation when Gobber forced himself into the middle of the group and pushed buckets of water into their hands.

"Today, you're facing the Hideous Zippleback. I'll explain what you need to do once you're in there." The recruits nodded with varied degrees of confidence, or lack thereof. "Good. Now get into groups of two." The teens did as told while Gobber walked out of the arena.

The girls paired with each other sort of automatically, and Snotlout and Tuffnut paired up almost immediately, leaving Hiccup and Fishlegs together. The large boy gave Hiccup a nervous smile. He crinkled his eyes to give the impression of him smiling back, even though Fishlegs couldn't see his mouth.

When Gobber had found a position on the edges overlooking the arena, their teacher signaled two Vikings already in the arena to open the cage. They did so and immediately ran out of the arena, closing the main gate behind them.

Almost immediately, the arena filled with a faded green gas that made Hiccup's eyes sting. Automatically he drew closer to Fishlegs; both covering each other's backs. From above them, he could hear Gobber begin the lesson.

"Today is about teamwork." Okay, that explained the groups then "Now a wet dragon head can't light its fire." Oh, that's what he wanted them to do. "The Hideous Zippleback is _extra_ tricky." Because nothing can ever be easy on this island. "One head breaths gas, the other head lights it. Your job is to know which is which." But their heads are _identical._ That's the _point_.

Behind him, Fishlegs started shooting off dragon knowledge, which would normally be interesting, but in this situation it was just annoying.

"Razor sharp, serrated teeth that inject venom for pre-digestion. Prefers ambush attack, by crushing its victim's-" He was cut off when Hiccup slapped a hand over his mouth. Then, he carefully took his hand away and brought a finger to his lips. _Be Quiet_. Fishlegs nodded and both turned back around to look into the fog.

Distantly, they heard the other to groups arguing over something. Then, it went quiet. Suddenly, Tuffnut ran past them, screaming.

"Oh, I'm hurt! I am very much hurt!" Hiccup and Fishlegs shifted closer to each other.

"Chances of survival are dwindling into single digits now."

A head emerged from the mist and both boys turned to face it. It approached Fishlegs. The quivering boy threw half the bucket of water onto the head. All three parties were still until the head started gurgling up gas.

"Oh. Wrong head." The Zippleback blew gas into Fishlegs' face and he dropped the bucket, running to the edge of the arena and screaming as he went. The second head emerged after his departure, sparks just barely missing the gas in the air. Gobber shouted an encouragement.

"Now, Hiccup!" He threw the water up as far as his arms allowed. The water continued up but missed the Zippleback's head by about half a metre. _'Oh, come on.'_ Great. He was going to die… wait.

He heard Gobber call out his name behind him but he ignored it. Toothless had said that almost all dragons hated eels. And that the only ones that didn't weren't common on Berk. He had an eel in his vest.

Slowly, carefully, making sure the dragon could see what he was doing, he reached into his vest. He lifted the end to show reveal the eel over his shirt. The dragon flinched back. He smiled in relief. Toothless was right. Not that he had doubted him. Still, Hiccup was glad he hadn't been mistaken.

Slowly, he took a step forward, the dragon took a step back. He kept walking forward. They kept walking back. He pushed his arms out to encourage them into the cage behind him. By now, the gassy fog had cleared and he could see Gobber and the other recruits staring at him out of the corner of his eye. Time to speed this up.

When the Zippleback was inside the cage, he took out the eel from his vest, being careful not to let the others see it. He threw it as far as he could, which wasn't very far, but it still landed in the cage. The Zippleback curled up against the wall to get away from the eel. They were making a low sound in the back of their throat. He recognised it from when Toothless was screaming. **"Danger"**

He felt sorry for them. He would come back to take the eel out later. He made his way around to the doors of the cage, keeping his eye on the terrified dragon inside. The doors were heavy, but he managed to push them closed. Just before the gap in the doors closed, Hiccup whispered in Draconian.

**"Apologies"**

He only just saw the Zippleback freeze and look up at him before the doors closed completely.

He nodded to himself and turned, freezing when he noticed the stares of the other Vikings. He shifted nervously and took a few side steps.

 **"Done? Yes? Goodbye."** He switched his position to running out of the arena. He could feel their stares on his back but he ignored them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are welcome. See you next time!


	14. Making Friends

The night after the Zippleback lesson, Hiccup snuck into the arena. He had asked Toothless to teach him as many phrases as he thought would be useful. As well as how to read body language, so that even if he couldn't understand what they were saying, he knew what they were feeling.

He snuck into the arena –not that hard when the doors were usually left open- and walked over the Hideous Zippleback cage. He leaned his head on the door.

 **"Can you hear me?"** He heard a nervous rustling from inside.

 **"Yes."** It was followed by a small whimper. He sighed.

**"I am sorry about the Slither-Fish."**

**"…You are the human hatchling that spoke to me."** Hiccup smiled and nodded, then realised they couldn't see it.

 **"I am. If I open this entry to take the Slither-Fish out, do you swear not to run away? I bring fish."** He patted the satchel by his side for emphasis. There was a moment's pause, before they agreed.

Hiccup walked across to the hatch that opened the gate. Using all his weight to crank the lever down, he opened the cage.

He looked inside to see the Zippleback in the same place he left them, the eel still right in front of them. Carefully, with their eyes on him, Hiccup walked into the cage and picked up the eel between his pointer and middle finger. He dragged out of the cage before dropping it and wiping his hand on his vest.

He made a face. **"Gross."** The Zippleback chuckled nervously back at him.

Then, Hiccup opened his satchel and took two fish out of it. One for each head. He held them out to the dragon, reassuring them when they hesitated. They took the fish carefully in their jaws, then, when they confirmed that the fish weren't poisoned, they swallowed them whole.

While they were eating, Hiccup made his way to the ends of the doors, slowly, he pushed them closed. Not for dramatic effect or anything, they were just really heavy. Once the doors were closed and the hatch was locked, he leaned back against the cage.

 **"I apologise for this."** They grumbled something in response. Something that he didn't understand. He committed it to memory so that he could ask Toothless about it the next day.

It turned out, the dragon had said: **"It is okay hatchling. It is not uncommon for a Nest to force its Members to do what they do not want"**

Hiccup built Toothless a saddle and attached a string so he could control the tail. The dragon turned putting it on into a game of chase that lasted for ten minutes before Hiccup collapsed and Toothless took pity on him.

They were able to get into the air easily enough, Toothless telling Hiccup what he would do so the boy could move the tail. They managed to fly about half a kilometre out of the cove before Hiccup accidentally tugged too hard and they went crashing down.

Hiccup was knocked off the saddle and away from Toothless. He came across him rolling around in a patch of long grass. He could hear the mantra of _'good, good, good'_ through their Connection. He leant down and tore a few blades out of the ground, stuffing them in his pocket before going over to get Toothless out of whatever trance he'd got himself in.

Later, back in the cove, Toothless told him that it affected every dragon species that he knew of except 'No-Legged-Spiked-Tails', which were probably Whispering Deaths, and 'One-Head-Three-Mouths', which, honestly, Hiccup had no idea what they were.

He tried their names out and Toothless chuckled at the mispronunciation. Then, he tried to say Whispering Death in Norse. It came out as "Hiss-ger-rin-ger Death", but it was words! He tried again and again, trying to mimic the mouth shapes that the other Vikings made.

"Whis-ger-ing Death." He did it! He obviously couldn't make a 'p' sound without lips, but it was close enough.

The next day in training, Hiccup used the grass in his vest on the Gronckle. First, he caught their attention by growling low enough that only the dragon would be able to hear it.

 **"Come here, please."** They were still for a second, hovering in place and trying to find the source of the voice. They made eye contact with Hiccup and he repeated himself. **"Come here, please."**

They were obviously confused but they did as asked. Right before they reached him, he pulled the grass out of one of his pockets and held it out to their nose. Their eyes blew wide when they sniffed it and he rubbed their nose with it until they collapsed.

When Hiccup looked up, he noticed that the whole arena had their eyes on him. He waved nervously and ran out of the ring, narrowly dodging Astrid, who had snuck up behind him.

The next several days went on like that, Hiccup would improve something in the tail, try it out with Toothless, fail, and come up with ideas for a better version. He had decided that a pedal-controlled mechanism that went with a 'cheat sheet' was the easiest thing to do.

Everything was made from the parts he had hidden in his hollow. Honestly, he had never actually expected to use them. He had grown slightly possessive of them. But, if it help Toothless fly again, he didn't mind.

When they weren't flying, they were either helping Hiccup learn to talk, in both Draconian and Norse, exploring the island, or teach each other about their cultures. Every day, Hiccup improved, every day, he showed Toothless a piece of the island and every day, they each learnt something about each other's species.

They explored the cave system together until they both knew it well enough to get just about anywhere on the island in the complete darkness. Toothless told him that they looked like they were probably dug by No-Legged-Spiked-Tails, but that he didn't smell any recent tracks, so the caves were safe.

They hid in the tree roots Hiccup used to play in when it started raining and slashed around in the mud after it stopped.

Toothless would talk about his sister and their life in the Nest and Hiccup would talk about his father and his life on Berk.

Usually the only time he was in Berk was for either Dragon Training, or sleeping. Less of the latter as time went on. Toothless was very warm.

During Dragon Training, he rose up the ranks using things he learnt from Toothless. Every time he did something mean, he would go back later that night and apologise. Sometimes, he would go into the arena just to let the dragons out and talk to them. It was great speaking practice.

The Hideous Zippleback and Gronkle grew up in the Nest closest to Berk. They were captured during a raid. He asked them why they raided Berk. they only said that they were forced to. They hated talking about it, and Toothless refused to take him to the Nest. He said it was too dangerous.

The Deadly Nadder had been kicked out of her nest and was travelling west to look for a safe place to live. She was captured in the forest, while she was taking a nap.

The Monstrous Nightmare had been starving and had attacked the village as soon as he spotted food. He had been weak, so he was captured easily.

The Terrible Terror was part of a migrating pack that had passed over Berk. He had lagged behind and been trapped in a bola.

hiccup asked them if they wanted names, they told him that they didn't wan't names until they were free. Hiccup understood, and promised to do whatever he could to get them out as soon as possible.

The flying with Toothless and language practice also brought the attention of several dragons on the island. Hiccup distinctly remembered one time when he was first trying out the pedal, it malfunctioned and they ended up landing on top of a Timberjack. She was not pleased, but after a conversation, it was all cleared up. He named her Cushion as thanks for breaking their fall. She loved it.

The three of them got into all sorts of mishaps. Cushion often forgot that she was much bigger than the other two and tried to follow them into the caves. It didn't work. She also loved to mother them. Whenever hiccup received a bruise or scratch, she would insist he sit down and let her lick it clean. When he asked her about it, she told him that her eggs were stolen and destroyed by Vikings –or, as dragons called them, Kin-Killers- less than a year earlier. He let her do anything she wanted after that.

The word spread on the island, that there was a Kin-Killer-Tongue-Sharer hatchling that could make wingless dragons fly again and gave names freely. It brought them the attention of almost every Nestless dragon in the area.

The three were visited in the cove by all kinds of dragons. They brought fish and stories and tips for learning Draconian. They let Hiccup play with their hatchlings and learn about their species'. They encouraged him when he practiced speaking Norse. They treated him as one of them, and it was the happiest Hiccup had ever been. He could tell Toothless was new to the positive attention too, but loved it nonetheless.

The only issue was that Astrid had started following him around whenever he left dragon training. He had managed to lose her in the tunnels or get the help of a nearby dragon –they would roar or cause a ruckus to distract her while he fled- every time so far, but he knew it wouldn't last. She'd explore the tunnels on her own or bring half the village to check them out. If that happened, they would be caught, and probably killed.

Unless…

Unless he told her. He just needed to find a chance where they were alone. Where he knew no one else would hear them. He could talk now –sort of- and he could tell her everything he wanted to tell her that first night.

The chance to tell her came much sooner than he thought. They had been attempting to fly together in a strong wind, tied to a rock by a piece of string. Then, the string snapped and the two were blown into the field below them.

Somewhere along the way, the hook connecting Hiccup's riding gear to the saddle bent, leaving the human and dragon stuck together.

They had gone back to the cove to try to straighten the hook. They tried rocks, fabric, teeth, leftover pieces of metal they had lying around, the other dragons tugged it, blew fire on it, chewed it, nothing worked.

Hiccup realised they would have to get pliers from the village. That was not going to be fun. And from the look on Toothless' face when he realised the same thing, he agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One-Head-Three-Mouths are Catastrophic Quakens FYI


	15. Astrid

That night, Hiccup and Toothless snuck into the village. Cushion wanted to come with them but she was too big, so instead, she sent a Terrible Terror, Miscreant, with them. His name didn't really fit his personality, but it was all Hiccup could think of when he saw him and his siblings fight. Miscreant, along with his siblings, Rascal and Scoundrel, were close friends with Cushion, so he offered to come along.

Toothless' black scales worked well in the shadows, and Hiccup was used to sneaking around, Miscreant was bright purple, so he stayed under Toothless' wings. They managed to avoid everyone on their way to the forge. Of course, his Haddock Luck(tm) meant that something was going to happen. And it did.

Miscreant, who had been keeping lookout, crashed into Hiccup right before they heard someone call out Hiccup's name. Astrid.

The three froze in place, Hiccup trying to pry the hook open with Toothless watching and Miscreant tittering nervously.

 _'Do you think you can use the pliers?'_ "The question was directed at Toothless as Miscreant was too small to hold them, so it didn't need to be asked out loud. After a moment, Toothless nodded.

 _'I believe so, if I use both my teeth and claws to hold it.'_ They both ignored Astrid telling them that she knew Hiccup was in there.

 _'Good. Can you try to fix it while I talk to her?'_ Toothless nodded again, more confidently this time, and Hiccup nodded back before opening the forge windows. Astrid was standing right outside. Miscreant flew up to the roof so that he could keep an eye on both boys, while staying far enough in the shadows that Astrid couldn't see him.

Hiccup smiled at her, expression changing to confusion when she flinched. He reached up to his face.

Oh. He had forgotten to wear his mask. It really was a good thing Astrid was the first person he ran into, not Snotlout or the twins. He quickly covered his face with both hands.

"Sor-ry." Astrid's expression changed to one of amazement. Why wou- oh. Wow, that day -or night now, but whatever- was really not going well for him.

"You can talk." A statement, not a question. She is positive she didn't mishear him. He nodded and spoke falteringly.

"Yes. Though un-til re-cent-ly, I could not." He could hear Toothless rustling behind him and Miscreant hissing at him to get her away above him. "I had hel." Hopefully, the 'p' was implied.

"From who?" Here it was. The chance to finally tell her the truth. The question was, could he be brave enough to do it. If she tells the others he'd be exiled… he was an outcast –but not an Outcast, the distinction is important- either way. Alright then. Here goes nothing.

 **"Miscreant, come down here please."** He heard Toothless freeze inside the forge. Hiccup had talked to him about telling other Vikings about them. The dragon didn't think it was a good idea but Hiccup was determined to try anyway. Toothless sent a warning through their Connection. Hiccup reassured him and brought his attention back to Astrid and Miscreant.

The girl was watching him in shock. Miscreant hissed lowly and Hiccup repeated his request.

"Hiccup, what are you doing?" Miscreant grumbled and flew down to join them. Astrid reached for her axe and Hiccup reached out a hand to stop her.

"No. He will not a-tack." Astrid took her arm way from her axe but stayed tensed, eyeing him and the dragon warily. Miscreant landed on Hiccup's shoulder and the boy brought a hand up to scratch his chin. The dragon practically melted at the touch. "See? He is nice."

Astrid continued to look between the two with mistrust. He held the dragon out to her. As soon as he realised what was happening, Miscreant started struggling in Hiccups hands.

 **"Calm down, she will not hurt you. If she does, she will regret it."** That calmed him down enough to let Hiccup hold him, though he was still clearly unhappy. Hiccup switched to Norse. "You can gat him ith you want."

Astrid gave him an incredulous look before, at his encouraging nod, reaching slowly to the small dragon. Miscreant growled slightly but fell silent at the look he received from Hiccup. Carefully, Astrid rubbed over the Terror's head, fiddling with the spikes on the top. Miscreant's growls immediately changed to purrs and he relaxed completely. Astrid smiled and her strokes grew in confidence.

"How did you manage to tame a dragon? And what were you saying earlier?" Hiccup brought Miscreant back to his chest, where the dragon curled into a happy ball in his arms.

"I did not tane hin. He is a… thriend." Right, he can't pronounce 'f' or 'm' without lips. He can't pronounce 'b', 'p' or 'v' either. Fun. Hopefully, she understood what he meant to say. "I s-goke to hin in his lan-gu-age. The dra-gons taught it to ne. I can s-geak it ge-cause oth ny throat." That sentence was unnecessarily hard. Language that involved lips sucked. "Cone with ne and I will show you."

Hiccup shifted Miscreant -who had by now stopped his purring but had decided to stay where he was- into one arm and reached the other out for Astrid to take.

"Just gro-niss to not tell an-y-one." She hesitated. Then, she nodded confidently and took his hand. He nodded back and walked back to the forge window, keeping a tight grip on her hand to make sure she didn't run.

 **"Toothless, open the Den-Entrance, please."** He heard Toothless grumbling from inside the forge before a large snout pushed the window open. Astrid gasped and took a step as far back as she could with Hiccup holding on to her. "This is Toothless. Cone in-side."

Miscreant flew out of Hiccup's arm and onto Toothless' head. With his free arm, Hiccup held one of the window doors open while Toothless used his head to hold the other one. He pulled Astrid inside the forge, where he let go of her hand. Toothless had managed to break the clip and was blocking the exit, and Astrid would never dare attack a dragon she had no information about.

He made sure that Astrid was looking at him and switched to Sign Language so that he could explain it to her more easily.

"Dragons are not what we think. They are kind. Smart. They treat me the best I have ever been treated." Astrid was looking at him strangely, it certainly made sense, considering he had just told her, a dragon killer, that dragons treat him better than humans do. "They play with me. Teach me things. Tell me stories. Let me talk about inventions. Ask any questions I want." Astrid's expression changed to considering. He had no idea what she was thinking about, but he hoped it would result in her agreeing to meet the other dragons.

Once her gaze refocused, he continued. "I can show you what dra-gons are really like. Ith you want. We will hathe to th-ly there." Her gaze flicked to Toothless and back to Hiccup.

"Okay. But only if you tell me what kind of dragon that is." Hiccup nodded and walked around her. He patted Toothless on the head before jumping onto the saddle and slotting his foot into the stirrup in one fluid motion, shifting forward to make space for Astrid to sit. The girl followed him more slowly, always keeping an eye on Toothless' teeth and Miscreant.

Once she had settled into the saddle, Toothless started walking forward, out of the forge. As Toothless checked for lookouts, Hiccup leant back.

"He is a Night Thu-ry." He just managed to hear Astrid's shocked "Night Fury?" before Toothless leapt off the ground. Hiccup twisted and slammed his hand over Astrid's mouth just before a scream escaped. It would be a bad idea to wake up the whole village.

They flew straight up before levelling out and gliding over the forest. Ascending and gliding they could do easily. It was the turning and landing they had trouble with, hence the cheat sheet.

Miscreant flew crookedly next to Toothless before pulling ahead with a quick **"I will tell the others,"** and leaving the three alone.

Astrid was clinging to Hiccup, nearly crushing his ribs. He chuckled softly.

"Re-lax. It is okay. You will not gall. See." He spread out his arms, feeling the wind push them gently. He felt Astrid take her head off his shoulder. Her arms loosened around his waist as she looked around. Hiccup asked Toothless to fly above the cloud line and they ascended slowly. He had never seen the sky above the clouds at night. The day, yes, but they'd never flown at night before that day. And in the village, torches and clouds always blocked the view.

Once they reached the clouds, Hiccup couldn't resist stretching his arm out to touch them, Astrid followed his lead. He had always wondered what clouds felt like. He had imagined they were warm and soft, not cold and wet. He shivered at the sensation and Toothless chuckled.

_'It surprises all Hatchlings when they first touch Water-Smoke.'_

When their head were above the clouds, Hiccup couldn't stop the gasp that escaped him. He heard Astrid have a similar reaction from behind him.

Above them, the sky glowed. Large ribbons of blue, green and purple rippled in front of them. The infinite navy blue was broken by patches of pink, green and light blue, the whole space was filled with more stars than Hiccup thought existed.

It was beautiful. He looked forward to being able to do it over a hundred more times.


	16. (Switch to Astrid's POV)

After a few minutes of just gliding, Toothless began descending. They had never landed from this height before. This was going to be bumpy.

Hiccup grabbed Astrid's hand from where they rested loosely around his waist. He covered her hands with his and shaped her fingers to form signs.

"Hold on." Right as he said that, they burst through the clouds and were immediately assaulted by strong wind. Hiccup only just managed to move his hands so that they were gripped tight to the saddle before the wind could carry him off. Astrid, in turn, tightened her grip around is waist. Toothless spread his wings to slow them while Hiccup got into position. He felt Astrid strengthen her grip around him.

They lower they got, the faster they went. Once he could see the cove clearly, Hiccup told Toothless to land in the water. The dragon only just managed to aim at the lake before they crashed.

Toothless took the brunt of the force but the two riders were knocked off his back and into the water.

Hiccup's head broke the surface and he came face to face with Cushion's large head. He shook his head at her worried questions and reached forward to grab onto her horns to heave himself out of the water. She raised her head and turned her neck so that Hiccup could drop to the ground next to where Toothless had left the water.

A shrieking brought his attention back to the lake. Miscreant, Rascal and Scoundrel were flapping around Astrid's head. The girl was trying to avoid them and looking around. She probably wanted to see if there was a part of the cove without dragons.

When Miscreant said he'd get the others, Hiccup didn't think he'd get _everyone_.

There was a group of Monstrous Nightmares near the large tree. In the middle of the group were Spark, Smoulder and Flame. Two hatchlings and their mother that Hiccup freed from a forgotten dragon trap three days earlier. They had decided to stay in the cove until Flame's injuries had healed.

Cushion's Mate, Ash stood next to her. Next to Ash were Cushion's sisters and their hatchlings.\

Miscreant's pack fluttered around over the heads of the other dragons, being general nuisances. Not that Hiccup would ever say that to any of their faces.

The rest were a random assortment of what seemed like the island's entire dragon population –minus the ones in the arena- scattered around the cove. Some of them had gathered in groups of age or species, but the others mingled.

Every dragon was giving off some form of light. Lighting fires in their mouths, spewing lava, creating small campfires out of groups of twigs or just lighting themselves on fire.

Currently, all of their eyes were on either him and Toothless on the edge of the lake, or Astrid struggling to look for a dragon-free spot in the cove.

Hiccup sighed and asked the dragons around him and Toothless to spread out. They did so, leaving a large space in that area. As soon as Astrid spotted it, she moved towards it.

As Astrid was wringing out her clothes, Hiccup beckoned a Nightmare to come forward. He had named her Yak after her jumpiness. Behind her inherent fear of everything though, she was rather mellow. She was a good first dragon to introduce to Astrid.

Hiccup was stroking Yak's horns when he saw Astrid freeze out of the corner of his eye. She must have finished and seen what he was doing. He looked up to see the girl staring at him.

Toothless also noticed what she was doing. He stood up from where he had been laying, tail flicking in and out of the water, and walked over to where Astrid was standing. The dragon ripped the axe off her belt and made his way over to Hiccup. Once he reached the boy, he dropped the axe and made a show of crooning and butting his hand for attention. Hiccup chuckled and complied, using one hand to stroke Yak's horns and the other to scratch at Toothless' spines.

When both dragons were purring, Hiccup looked up at Astrid, whom had by now taken a few steps closer. He smiled reassuringly.

"It's sathe. Cone on." Hesitantly, Astrid moved closer. She was clearly intimidated by the most powerful dragons currently known to Berk being right in front of her. She was being incredibly brave. It was one of the things Hiccup lo- _admired_ about her. It was no use encouraging feelings that weren't reciprocated.

When Astrid's hand was within reach, Hiccup took his hand off Toothless and moved the one petting Yak down to her snout. He took her hand gently in his free one and moved it so it was hovering right over the one on Yak's snout. Slowly, Hiccup removed his hand and replaced it with Astrid's. Yak continued to purr, just as Toothless had asked her when Hiccup took Astrid's hand.

The longer her hand went un-bitten, the more Astrid relaxed. Hiccup watched her before telling the other dragons that they were free to do what they wanted.

Some dragons, realising that the fun part was over, flew off. Those with hatchlings gathered their clutch and took off back to their nests. Except for Flame, who settled with her hatchings in the opening to the cave system. The rest either increased their flames to compensate or gathered around the humans.

Hiccup chuckled at a particularly excited Zippleback and tried his best to satiate their want for attention. Astrid hesitated before following suit, giggling softly when a Nadder nuzzled into her.

* * *

It was sunrise by the time all of the dragons had grown bored and flown away. The humans leant back against the Night Fury's scales as the Timberjack that fished Hiccup out of the lake bid farewell to another and moved so that its wings were stopping the rising sun from blinding them.

Astrid certainly had a lot to think about. She had been raised her whole life believing that a dragon would kill her they second it saw her. But tonight… had Hiccup really tamed all those dragons? Or were they really what Hiccup told her they were?

Kind… the Timberjack had fished Hiccup out of the lake without him even using those growls, clicks and hisses that he used to talk to that Terrible Terror. Astrid had also noticed the larger dragons being careful around the smaller ones, careful not to hurt them. When she was still nervous, they moved slowly and gently, getting faster the more she got used to them.

Smart… the Night Fury –Hiccup had said its name was Toothless, why he picked that name, Astrid had no clue- had waited until she was distracted before stealing her axe. She fondles the weapon next to her. She had noticed that the other dragons seemed less aggressive once the axe was away from her, which meant they were able to recognise it as a dangerous tool rather than a part of her like their claws and teeth.

Hiccup had said they were playful. Once they were comfortable with her, there wasn't anything to suggest otherwise.

She had noticed the babies tumbling all over the larger ones, playing with their tails and climbing up to their heads. The older dragons had let them, even nudging them with their claws or baring their teeth as an invitation for the babies to pretend to fight them. She had even noticed some Deadly Nadders join in on the climbing, picking up the babies and then jumping on each other so that the babies were higher up. Much like how Viking warriors would mock fight with the children and let them ride on their shoulders.

Usually though, that was confined to family and close friends. These dragons let anyone in the group play with their babies. Astrid knew that for any mother, of any species, to allow that would mean an incredibly strong bond of trust. These dragons trusted each other in a way Astrid had never seen in Vikings.

They were kind to each other like no Viking she had ever seen, which explained why Hiccup, small and frail as he was, would spend more time with them than with those who were more likely to hurt him than help him. They were smart. They had object permanence and understood body language. She knew Hiccup enjoys spending time around the smarter people. Which is why she and Fishlegs would spend time with him and each other when they were younger. She had never taken Hiccup for the playful type, though that may have been because there were several ways of being playful.

The twins' version of playful matched with most Vikings, beating each other to a pulp until only one was left standing. Astrid had never understood how that was considered entertainment.

Snotlout's father, who was known to have flirted with almost anything that moved until he married Snotlout's mother, probably inspired his version. There were some rumours that Spitelout continued womanising well after he had married. Snotlout threw a fit whenever these rumours were mentioned, which, Astrid had to admit, was slightly entertaining.

Fishlegs preferred to use puzzles or word-related games, he loved quizzes and imparting as much knowledge as possible on everyone he met. Astrid had enjoyed those kinds of games –and still did, just slightly- but had stopped spending time with him when she started her training. Hiccup was probably the only one in the village that still appeared interested in what Fishlegs had to say.

Astrid herself didn't have time to be playful. Although, she secretly enjoyed physical games like races and obstacle courses. Being agile wasn't very Viking-like, so she preferred to keep that a secret. Something she had noticed during raids was that Hiccup was also agile and flexible. Honestly, she was jealous of his apparently innate ability to twist and turn around every obstacle in his way.

Hiccup… Astrid could probably count on one hand the things she knew about Hiccup.

He was smart, that much was obvious every time he spoke (signed?), and with every invention he made. Astrid would never admit how much the things he made impressed her.

He was sarcastic, he had probably gotten the trait from Gobber, with the amount of time he spent with the blacksmith. It was kind of sad, how he spent more time with his boss than his own father. Though she could understand, no one would want to spend much time with someone who looked down on them as much as the Chief looked down on Hiccup.

He was a blacksmith, and a good one. Every time Astrid had come to get her axe repaired she could see him working.

Once, she had come by just as he finished working. He had run up and shown Gobber what he had made, the way he had smile was almost cut- no, she was not going down that path-. It was a metal figurine, it depicted a Deadly Nadder mid-fight. It was beautiful, though Astrid would always deny that she thought so.

Gobber had brushed the boy off and ordered him to go back to sharpening blades. Astrid had felt indignant on his behalf but the boy just nodded and left, leaving the figurine on the bench. He was probably used to being ignored. At the time Astrid hadn't cared, but now, she realised how awful everyone had always been to Hiccup.

(No one knew this, but Astrid had taken the forgotten figurine. It currently stood next to her bed. At sunset, she would watch the way the light bounced off the polished metal. She would kill anyone who found out about it.)

"He was an outcast. That was the first thing anyone would notice upon arriving at the island. He was always at the back. He never spoke unless spoken to. The rest of the village completely ignored his presence if they weren't insulting him.

…Astrid was included in that. He was only an outcast because everyone decided he was. It wasn't a personality trait or a skill like the others. It was a fact. One she was ashamed of now. One she wished she could reverse.

Personally, Astrid had no idea when her perception of things changed so drastically. Hiccup had opened her mind to dragons, and in doing so, opened her mind to everything else as well.

Was this the way Hiccup thought? Looking at the big picture. Seeing people as equals, even if society dictated they were not. Taking everything he possibly could into account when thinking or making decisions. Was it because he knew the truth about dragons, like she did now. Or had he always thought like that. Something inside her told her that it was the latter, and she had always been taught to trust instinct. It was amazing. He was amazing.


	17. Astrid Learns Things

_'How did he manage to learn the truth?'_ The thought ran through Astrid's mind after about an hour of just lazing in the sun.

The Timberjack had moved once the sun had stopped glaring in their faces and was now lounging in the lake with the three terrible Terrors that had fluttered around Astrid's head when she had first got to the cove. One of them was the one that Hiccup had showed to her at the forge. Miscreant, if she remembered correctly.

There wasn't any training that day, so the pair was free to lay in the little warmth the north sun provided. And that's what they did.

Astrid turned towards Hiccup to ask her question but was interrupted by him speaking first.

"Did you know that dra-gons are not _g_ orn with na _n_ es." Astrid shook her head, wondering where he was going with this. "On-ly high ran-king or _th_ a-nous dra-gons ha _th_ e na _n_ es. So I na _n_ ed then. You know Tooth-less and _N_ is-cre-ant. _N_ is-cre-ant's si _g_ -lings are Ras-cal and Scoun-drel. The Night- _n_ are you _g_ at-ted _th_ irst is Yak." He gestured to the Timberjack in the lake. "This is Cu-shion."

Cushion looked up at the sound of their name. Astrid waved awkwardly at them. The dragon nodded back.

"The dra-gons in the a-re-na still do not ha _th_ e na _n_ es. they do not want an-y un-til they are _th_ ree."

He talked to the dragons in the arena? Well, it made sense. It certainly explained why he always managed to avoid being hit with their attacks. She didn't think anyone else had noticed but she certainly had. Back on track though.

"How did you do it? Find out about this, about what dragons are really like?" Hiccup sighed and Toothless nudged his head in what looked like comfort. The boy then brought Toothless' tail to his lap. Astrid noticed some kind of mechanism attached to it, obviously connected to the saddle. It controlled… a fake fin!

Toothless must have lost a fin. Hiccup would have found him in the forest –he spent a lot of time in the forest after all- and, being Hiccup, had been unable to kill the dragon. Then, in amazing Hiccup fashion, he must have decided to help the downed creature. In doing so, he must have realised the truth. Only… that didn't explain how he could speak their language. As far as Astrid knew, it took a very long time to be as fluent in a language as Hiccup appeared to be.

Everyone knew there was only one Night Fury, and it had been last seen during the final raid before the chief left to find the nest. That was just over half a month ago. That meant that Hiccup was carrying full conversations in Dragon-speak after half a month. If that.

"Why can you speak their language so well?" Hiccup began stroking a hand over Toothless' tail.

"I _g_ on-ded with Tooth-less when we _n_ et. We can hear each o-thers thoughts. He said that it on-ly works i _th_ the dra-gon and hu- _n_ an are per- _th_ ect-ly con- _g_ at-i- _g_ le."

Astrid had never heard of something like that. That made sense though, Vikings were so stubborn that they'd ignore almost every chance of democracy -of communication- in favour of winning. Being able to bond would imply that dragons were more than beasts, which would be bad for the war. The ability to bond was apparently rare, too. It was possible that the ability was hidden because Chiefs didn't want random Vikings gaining too much power.

"The rods connected to the saddle are used to control the fake tail, right?" Hiccup nodded and took something off the front of the saddle. iIt was a piece of paper with what looked like several tail positions and markings accompanying them that were most likely shorthand.

"Cheat sheet." So it was used to help him fly. Hiccup switched to sign for the next sentence. "It is not perfect."

"Why do you keep switching? Between speaking and signing, I mean."

"Some words do not exist in sign. Like Dra-co-ni-an or Tooth-less. Dra-co-ni-an is the lan-gu-age o _th_ dra-gons. Sign also needs people to see you. No dragon can speak Norse and I need to practice s- _d_ ea-king."

"I could help you practice. Teach you about tone and intonation and how to speak smoothly. As long as you promise to teach me how you've been beating the dragons in the arena." Hiccup considered it, bringing a hand to his chin in the way he does when he's found a new puzzle. Then, he smiles and holds his hand out to shake.

"Deal." They shake on it before leaning back against Toothless' side and watching the clouds.

After a while, Astrid found herself getting antsy. She usually spent her mornings training, and even though she hadn't slept at all that night, she didn't feel the least bit tired.

Coming to a decision, Astrid picked up her axe, letting Hiccup know that she was going to move to the other side of the cove to practice,.

She practiced her swinging first. If she showed of just a bit when she noticed Hiccup was watching, then that was for her and her alone to know.

She practiced her throwing on an old tree that had taken up a portion of the cove walls. Then, she went through different sets, just to pass the time.

Eventually, she noticed dragons had started crowding around, poking their heads out from behind rock and trees. The were even several in the lake. A number of them were in plain sight, though, clinging to the rocks or the cove walls. A small blue Hideous Zippleback had taken Hiccup's attention from her. She would have been frustrated by that if she weren't concerned by the amount of dragons materialising around her.

They were watching her.

Yesterday, Astrid would have thought that they were analysing her moves, coming up with strategies to combat them. Depending on the dragon, she might have even thought that they were just mindless beasts watching the shine of the metal. Or perceiving a threat in the blade. They would have been correct in the latter. Before that day, Astrid would have struck down any dragon she came across, or died trying.

Now though, she decided to look closer. The look in their eyes wasn't wickedness or madness. They were curious. They wanted to know what she was doing. They didn't want to use the information for anything, just have it. She recognised the look from Hiccup's eyes when he listened to Vikings attempt to mimic accents or when the twins were trying out a new prank idea.

She continued to practice until her limbs were sore and her fingers began to blister. Over time, most of the dragons had left. Other dragons replaced them until those ones left as well.

Eventually, the only ones left in the cove were herself, Hiccup and Toothless, whom she could tell was getting fidgety. The sun was a short time away from touching the edges of the cove walls when she sat back down next to them.

The dragon crooned something to Hiccup, who chuckled and stroked along his snout.

"We ha _th_ e not _g_ rac-ticed all day. Do you think you can wait here _th_ or a _d_ it?" The two waited for her to nod her assent before standing.

Astrid moved to lean against the closest wall while Hiccup lifted himself onto Toothless' saddle and checked everything was working.

Hiccup smiled at her before the two vanished. Astrid stared at where they had been until she heard Hiccup cheering in the sky.

She looked up to see the boy and dragon flying above the cove. They would spin, twist or turn sharply before levelling out and gliding. They repeated the process, sometimes flying straight up or down, then levelling out and repeating the routine.

They continued like that, flipping and falling and twisting. Some tricks were so flashy that Astrid was almost certain the two were showing off. Others, like the sharp turns, were clearly something that they needed to work on.

It was a bit strange though, how much difficulty they seemed to be having. From what Astrid could tell, they could perform almost every stunt perfectly. It was like they were trying to rely on something they didn't need.

It was probably the cheat sheet. When Hiccup was distracted by her and the clouds the night before, he was able to fly perfectly. Now, when she caught clear glimpses of him, his head was always bowed to read the sheet.

Astrid remembered doing something similar when she first started training. She would always go through a move in her head before performing it. Every move had long become muscle memory by then, but she still did it.

It was a long time ago, Astrid barely remembered why she did it. iIt had held her back and she hadn't even noticed she did it until her mother had pointed it out to her.

Clearly, Hiccup needed this pointed out to him too.

When the two came back down, skidding slightly in the dirt, the sun had fallen behind the walls and the cove had fallen into shadow.

Astrid walked up as Hiccup was unsaddling Toothless. She considered her options before punching his arm. "That's for not telling me sooner, and for being an idiot." The boy yelped rubbed his arm. Making another small yip when she pulled him in to kiss him on the cheek. "That's for everything else."

Even in the dim light, Astrid could see the blush on Hiccups cheeks. She didn't have to look into a mirror to know there was one on her own.

Well, that was embarrassing. She didn't regret it though.

Astrid turned and started looking for a way out of the cove. Upon seeing a hole in the wall, she began walking towards it. She was stopped, however, by a small, shaking voice behind her.

"Thank you."

Astrid turned back to face Hiccup. His hand was on his cheek, right above where she kissed him. The edges of where his lips would be were quirked up and his chin was shaking. Tears were pooling in his eyes.

Astrid was shocked. No one she knew had ever reacted to a kiss like that

Hiccup bowed his head. "Thank you, no one has e- _th_ er touched _n_ y _th_ ace _d_ e- _th_ ore."

Oh.

Of course he'd never been touched before. Especially on his face. The only one who gave him any non-scathing attention was Gobber. Everyone knew that Gobber wasn't big on anything more than a strong shoulder pat. Astrid had seen him give Hiccup a hair ruffle when he did really well in the forge, but he never touched the boy's face.

Gobber was probably Hiccup's only source of human contact. Even when they were young, Astrid had almost never seen Stoick give Hiccup any positive attention. It happened, yes, but rarely, and before Hiccup began prominently displaying his non-Viking qualities.

At the time, she had assumed that the chief had only stopped doing it to keep up appearances. As she had grown up, she had realised that was not the case.

In a village as small as theirs, everyone knew everyone from the time they were children. There was no point in keeping up appearances, except to outsiders.

By the time she had figured that out though, she had stopped caring. Instead, she had joined everyone else in their treatment of him, because that was all she had known. (Not that that made it excusable or acceptable, she now realised)

When Astrid snapped herself out of her thoughts, she noticed that Hiccup was still staring at her. She squared her shoulders. She couldn't change the past, but she could make sure Hiccup never felt alone again.

"Well then, I'll just have to touch you there more." She kissed his face once more before walking out of the cove. "You don't need that cheat sheet by they way." She was out of the cove and walking through the forest before he would able been able to ask her what she meant.


	18. Search Patry's Return

Over the next few days, Astrid would go to the cove with Hiccup after each of their lessons.

They had come up with an arrangement of sorts. Astrid would spend about two hours teaching Hiccup how to fight. Usually with swords or axes, but they would sometimes work on weapon-less fighting. Hiccup was surprisingly good once he got the hang of it, though he did work in a forge so that made sense.

Then, Hiccup would spend the next two hours teaching Astrid as much as he could about dragons. It was much more than Astrid thought it would be, considering that Hiccup had only known Toothless for a month. He taught her how to tell what the dragon was feeling though their body language, and to understand a few basic and common words. She couldn't pronounce them herself, though. Sometimes, she would try just to hear the way Hiccup laughed when she _horribly_ mispronounced them.

Hiccup also taught her how to calm a dragon down. Though he made sure to tell her that it didn't work with all dragons, and that sometimes a dragon was so full of anger or fear that they couldn't be calmed. He showed her an almost-healed gash on his arm from a time when he had ignored Toothless' warning.

After the four hours was up, the two of them (three really, because Toothless hated when he wasn't included in things) would each practice their own things until sunset. Astrid would set up an obstacle course for herself in the cove and surrounding forest or go through exercises while Hiccup and Toothless worked on their flying. They still used the cheat sheet more than Astrid thought was necessary, but they were getting better at not relying on it.

True to her word, Astrid would almost constantly initiate physical contact between the two. She hugged Hiccup when she saw him in the cove, she ruffled his hair or lightly punched his arm when he pulled off a move correctly and she touched his face. Whenever he was feeling upset, or when she needed his attention, she would bring her hand to his shoulder or neck, sometimes his cheek if she was trying to make a point. He loved it.

To keep up appearances, they would never leave the village at the same time. Hiccup would go immediately after training to avoid his going number of fans –which she was Absolutely _Not_ jealous of- while she stayed back to help her parents and siblings. When they were done, she'd say she was going to train (which wasn't actually untrue) and head to the cove.

Hiccup and Toothless would either explore the island or practice flying, they were almost always back before she got there and were eager to show her anything new they found interesting or fun. It was endearing, how the boy got so excited over finding some caves or a flower that he'd never seen before. Even more so that he liked her enough that he wanted to tell her everything he knew. Which was a lot.

That day, Astrid was helping her brother, Finn, transfer some weapons from the forge to the armouries when she noticed something on the horizon. She finished her job as quickly as she could and ran up to the overhanging above the port. The boat was still far away, but it was close enough to see the burns and tears in the sail. The sail which held the Berk symbol.

Her brother, who had followed her out, noticed at the same time she did, and ran back into the village to tell everyone the search party had returned.

Astrid wished she could share their excitement, but there was only one ship. Almost fifteen ships had left the island, with their best trackers and navigators. The number of each that they had went down every expedition, how many survived this time?

More importantly –no disrespect to the trackers and navigators- Astrid's two eldest brothers, Arne and Bjorn, had been part of that expedition. As had Snotlout's and Fishlegs' parents. The twins' parents had stayed behind, because no one else could control them. Astrid's father had been injured during the last raid and had stayed behind. Her mother was one of the village cooks.

Astrid looked among the warriors as the ship docked. Fishlegs' parents were both there. She could see Snotlout's father, but not his mother. She caught sight of her eldest brother -covered in blood and ash and on the verge of tears- and ran to him. On her way down to the dock, she was joined by her sister and remaining brothers. Their mother and father were already there.

Her sister asked where Bjorn was. Arne told them that he was with Gothi. He had been badly injured and had been fighting for life for the past four days. Their mother assured them that Bjorn was strong, and that he would survive.

Astrid was comforted by that, but looking around at devastated faces as they were told of the death of loved ones filled her with a rage that being around Hiccup had quelled. It didn't matter that Hiccup had found peace with the dragons when people were still dying.

The next time she saw him, they were going to find the nest, whatever it took. They didn't even have to kill the dragons there. With his ability to talk to them, Hiccup could explain what was going on in the village, and maybe even stop the raids.

Astrid was just about to head to the cove when she caught sight of Stoick getting off the boat on the other end. He and Gobber were talking, and judging by the confused expression on Stoick's face, it was about Hiccup.

She excused herself from her family and came up behind the two, careful to stay in their blind spots. As she got closer, their conversation became clearer.

"-being swarmed by his new fans." Stoick held a hand up to stop Gobber, an astonished look on his face.

"Hiccup?" He said it so incredulously that Astrid felt slightly offended on Hiccup's behalf. It made sense, though, considering what she had thought of Hiccup, what the whole village thought of Hiccup, when the party had left.

"Who would've thought it, eh? He has this way with the beasts. Now him and Astrid are tied in top place." He continued as Stoick looked more and more astonished. "Don't tell anyone, but I've seen the two of them hanging around together. I passed them in the forest once, while I was fetching some wood. Hiccup was signing too fast to see but whatever he said made Astrid laugh, really laugh! I haven't heard her do that since her uncle Finn was killed."

Astrid decided she had heard enough of the conversation and carefully moved into the alley behind the cliff houses. She still couldn't blend into the shadows like Hiccup could, but her stealth had improved over the last couple of weeks.

She managed to get through the village and into the forest without being spotted. As soon as the village was out of sight, she broke into a run.

When she arrived at the cove, the only one there was the Timberjack Hiccup and Toothless were fond of. Cushion, if Astrid remembered her name correctly. The dragon raised her head as Astrid approached.

Hiccup had told her once that dragons could understand Norse. Not perfectly, but enough to almost always correctly interpret what she said to them.

"Hey, do you know where Hiccup and Toothless are? I need to find them." Cushion shook of the leaves that had fallen onto her back and stood up –or as close to it as she could get, seeing as she didn't have any legs-. She lowered her neck for Astrid to climb onto and waited until she was secured before lifting off the ground.

Cushion flew over the forest, out to the shoreline. They followed the shore around the island until they were on the opposite side to the village. They broke off from above the beach to fly towards a cliff. Hiccup and Toothless sat against a wall of hexagonal rocks, sharing a pile of fish with a group of Terrible Terrors. Well, Hiccup was sharing; Toothless appeared to be doing everything in his power to keep the small dragons away from the food.

There wasn't enough room for Cushion to land, so she hovered over the edge while Astrid jumped off her neck. Once Astrid was on the ground, Cushion turned and flew away. The Terrors that were lying on Hiccup and sniffing through the fish got up and followed her out.

Hiccup jumped up once he saw her.

"Ash! You were right! I didn't need the sheet! Hey did you know-"

At the start, Hiccup had difficulty saying her name. He had said there were too many consonants and it took too long to say. Eventually, he just settled on calling her 'Ash'. Even after he got good enough that he'd be able to properly say her name if he tried, he insisted on calling her that.

Honestly, she liked it. Her family insisted on using her proper name and no one had ever gotten close enough to her to ever have given her a nickname.

Still, she had to keep up appearances –though both of them could see right through each other's acts at this point- and gave him his own nickname in retaliation. Fry. It was what baby fish were called and since he's a teenage Haddock, it fit. Hiccup thought it was hilarious, so they decided to keep the nickname.

"Fry," she interrupted, "the search party's back." Hiccup's eyes widened and his voice turned worried. What lips he had turned down at the corners.

"Is e _th_ eryone okay? How _n_ any shi _d_ s are there? Did they _th_ ind it? Is Dad okay?" Astrid rested her hand on his cheek to shut him up. Once he stopped talking, she moved her hands to his head, soothing down his windblown –and slightly singed- hair.

"I'm not completely sure how everyone is. There was only one ship, but there were enough people on it to fill maybe seven ships, from what I could tell. A lot of them are with Gothi, including one of my brothers, and I'm not sure how they'll be. Stoick's okay but they didn't find the nest so he wasn't in a good mood when I saw him, though that's probably changed by now."

Hiccup held still, letting her run her fingers through his hair. When she had finished –both with his hair and with talking- and had started patting Toothless, he tilted his head.

"Is your _g_ rother okay? And what do you _n_ ean Dad isn't in a _g_ ad _n_ ood? He's always in a _g_ ad _n_ ood."

"He's hurt badly, but he's strong, he'll make it." Hiccup nodded, he probably knew from her tone that she was just saying that to comfort and assure herself. "Gobber told him that you're the best in Training. He's probably going to talk to you about that when you get back." Hiccup nodded again and sighed.

"Alright." Toothless nudged Hiccup's side and warbled something. Hiccup's eyes widened, he'd clearly just remembered something. His face twisted into what was probably a cheeky smile and clapped his hands together. "So, you know the sea stacks next to the _n_ ountain you told us that a _d_ solutely under no circu _n_ stances were we to _th_ ly through?"


	19. A Chief, a Dragon Rider, and a Breast Hat

Hiccup knew before walking into the house that Stoick was there. Probably sitting at the fire, waiting cheerfully for his _real Viking_ son to come in.

He'd been in a good mood, too. He and Toothless had finally gotten rid of the cheat sheet and they had done some amazing flying through those sea stacks. And Astrid was impressed by it. Once she stopped being angry with them for doing something so dangerous./

 _And_ they'd gotten Toothless to agree to show them the nest. Since all dragons refused to talk about it, that was a massive achievement.

He was hesitant about it –he still is- and even once Astrid had told him that if Hiccup could talk to the Queen and come to an agreement with them, he was difficult.

 **"She cannot be reasoned with. She will kill you on sight,"** he had told them.

 **"If the Queen cannot be reasoned with, then maybe the other Tongue-Sharers will. As long as we are not seen by her, we will survive, will we not?"** Hiccup had responded with.

In the end, Toothless had agreed to take them the next night, when the Nestless dragons had said the next raid party was likely to return. They would blend in and see just what was going on.

Now, he had to deal with his father. This was not going to be fun.

Hiccup stood in front of the door, mask on. He took a deep breath, and pulled the door open. It was amazing how you can be afraid to enter your own living room.

At first, all Hiccup could see was the fire. Then, his field of vision was enveloped by fabric, metal and yak fur.

"There you are!" Stoick pushed him back and laid his hands on Hiccups shoulders. If he hadn't spent the last nearly-two-months carrying full packs of Terrible Terrors around on his shoulders, they would have likely broken under the weight of his dad's hands. Or the weight of what Stoick's disappointment in him will be once he realised his son wasn't a dragon killer.

Was it even possible for emotional weight to cause physical harm? Knowing Hiccup's luck, probably.

...Whatever.

"You've been keeping secrets from me." He knew that his father was talking about Dragon Training, but a part of him was worried that the chief was talking about Toothless. "How long did you think you could hide it?" Wow, Stoick was really not helping his already rapidly increasing anxiety.

"Hide what?" He had to at least pretend he didn't know what Stoick was talking about. And it never hurt to clarify.

"Nothing happens on this island without me knowing about it." No. Stop. Dad. You're killing him. You're killing your son.

"Let's talk about that dragon." Please. Just stop. Nothing had been clarified and now Hiccup was dying.

They stared at each other. Stoick was smiling, so he definitely didn't know about Toothless. So much for knowing everything that happened on the island. Hiccup honestly Did Not know what to do in this situation. Suddenly, his father burst into laughter.

"I was hoping for this, you know." He knew. "And believe me, it only gets better!" Hiccup really didn't think so. "Just wait 'till you spill a Nadder's guts for the first time!" No. Absolutely not. That was disgusting. "Or mount your first Gronckle head on a spear, what a feeling!" The feeling of needing to throw up was the only thing coming out of this conversation.

"You really had us all going there, son! All those years of being the worst Viking Berk has ever seen!" Hiccup had expected that to hurt but… Ouch.

"Odin, it was rough! I was ready to give up on you!" Dad, you were making this whole situation worse. "And all this time, you were holding out on me, _Thor almighty_!" He wasn't holding out, he'd just realised that he didn't want to kill dragons and had found an alternative. Not that he could tell anyone except Astrid.

"With you doing so well in the ring, we _finally_ have something to talk about." They had things to talk about before, it was just that neither of the were interested in the same thing. Even when they were, they had differing opinions, so Stoick never let them talk.

Stoick sat on one of the benches around the fire, staring at Hiccup, who was left to stand awkwardly in the doorway. Hiccup sifted through his barely functioning brain, trying to find something to make conversation with.

He couldn't tell his dad about Toothless. He also couldn't tell him that he wasn't actually hurting the dragons. In fact, he was doing the opposite.

He could talk about his improvement at fighting, and what Astrid had taught him. But then there was a chance that Stoick would ask how he and Astrid became friends, and Hiccup didn't know how to tell a non-Toothless version of the story.

He had clearly taken too long, because Stoick cleared his throat and took something out of a satchel that Hiccup hadn't noticed lying at the chief's feet.

"I brought you something. To keep you safe in the ring." In his hands was a large Viking helmet. Carefully, Hiccup took it from him, running his hand along the surface. He'd never had a helmet. It was a sign of a Viking warrior, and he'd never been Viking enough to earn it.

"Your mother would've wanted you to have it. It's half of her breastplate." Hiccup snatched his hand away from the top of the helmet. That was a bit odd.

Stoick tapped the helmet resting on his own head.

"Matching set. Keeps her close you, know?" Hiccup nodded in understanding. He did, in fact, not know. He also didn't know how you could get the two helmets of very different sizes from the same amount of breastplate. He also didn't wand to think about his dad walking around with his mother's breastplate on top of his head.

"Wear it proudly. You deserve it. You've held up your end of the deal." At this point Hiccup couldn't even remember what their deal was, but he knew he had _absolutely not_ held up his end of it.

That was about enough of the conversation. Hiccup exaggerated a yawn. Stretching his arms above his head and opening his mouth wide enough that Stoick would be able to see it through the mask. When he lowered his arms, he pointed towards the stairs.

Stoick straightened and moved out of the way.

"Right, of course. You must be tired." While his father spoke, Hiccup moved up the stairs. "Glad we talked. Uh, goodnight." Hiccup waved offhandedly before reaching the top of the stairs and going to his room.

Once there, he took a deep breath. Talking with his dad was always way harder than it needed to be.

Downstairs, Hiccup heard Stoick sigh the same way. Good to know he was just as hard to deal with as his dad was. That's what karma looks like.

He lay down in his bed. He was not looking forward to having Stoick watch the deciding test tomorrow. He was not looking forward to _doing_ the deciding test. But he and Astrid had decided that Hiccup would do better than her, since he was the only one who'd be able to take the Monstrous Nightmare down without hurting them.

At least he was going to see the Nest.


	20. Snooping Teens

The arena was surrounded by Vikings. Their cheering was threatening to burst Hiccup's head open. Astrid didn't appear to have the same problem. Then again, she'd probably grown up with people cheering her on and celebrating her for everything she did. It was a miracle she hadn't turned into a female Snotlout. A miracle Hiccup was grateful for. One Snotlout was more than enough.

Astrid flipped over the fence he was hiding behind. She leaned in and pressed the top of her axe against his neck. To the audience, it'd looked like she was threatening him. They'd assume it was because she wanted to win.

"How are we doing this?"

"You wait here. Nake it look like your psyching yourselth ut. Count to ten and junt dack other." Astrid nodded and took her axe away.

Hiccup took a deep breath before running out into the arena. He led the Gronckle to the edge of the arena, where none of the onlookers could see what he was doing.

He took a handful of Dragon-Nip –as he had decided to call it- out of his vest. The Gronckle's eyes widened when she saw it. Carefully, making sure the other Vikings couldn't see what he was doing, Hiccup reached out and rubbed the Nip over the Gronckle's nose. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed.

A second later, Astrid jumped over the fence with a scream. Running towards him before coming to a stop, her arms going limp in what would look like defeat to those watching.

"Apparently, she decided to take her 'frustration' a step further and began swinging her axe around wildly, screaming profanities. Hiccup had to hold back his laugh at her exaggerated display.

While the other Vikings carried the Gronckle back into her cage (Hiccup could hear their words of amazement from the other side of the arena), Gobber herded the two teens together in front of Gothi.

Gobber held his hook over Astrid's head. No

He held his hand over Hiccups head. Yes.

Thank Thor. Their entire plan would have fallen to pieces if Gothi had picked Astrid.

The arena filled with cheers as Vikings rushed in. Gobber picked Hiccup up and rested the boy on his shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, Hiccup saw Astrid give him a cheeky look. He pulled a face at her. Well, half a face, since his mask was covering the rest of it.

As the crowd carried him out of the arena, Hiccup did his best to appear excited. He was a bit excited. He'd never had a proper conversation with the Nightmare. He was usually grumpy and chose to ignore Hiccup when he tried to make conversation. The other dragons told him not to take the Nightmares actions to heart. He was just like that.

Mostly though, Hiccup was nervous. It would be easy for the other Vikings to assume he was worried about facing the Nightmare. Really, he was more worried about how the village would react to his plan. It was obvious that Astrid wasn't sure how the day would go, and that it made her nervous and twitchy.

All that they could do was refine the plan and hope for the best, really. Astrid didn't like the idea of that, but she trusted him enough to go along with it. Hiccup will always thank the Gods for Astrid.

* * *

That night, after the crowd had left and Hiccup and Astrid had been able to get away from their parents, the two of them met up in a clearing on the edge of the forest.

The teens walked through the forest. It was easier than using the tunnels, since they didn't have Toothless on the off chance they got lost or there was a cave in.

After about five minutes of talking, Rascal hissed at him from the trees.

Rascal, unlike his brothers, fit his name perfectly. He took every chance to tease Hiccup about his 'well-chosen mate' and generally just got in the way whenever he could. He was protective though, like all Terrors, and had decided to wait for them in the clearing to make sure they stayed safe.

 **"Hatchling, you and your mate are being followed."** Astrid tilted her head at his alarmed look. He whispered to her that they were being followed before hissing back at Rascal, low enough that only Astrid and the dragon would be able to hear him.

 **"She is not my mate."** He ignored Rascals knowing purr. **"Who is following us?"** Rascal was silent for several seconds, presumably studying the ones following them.

 **"There are four of them. One is large and round. Two of them are identical, are they related to a Two-Head-One-Body? The last is short, but clearly strong. His chest is puffed like a Water-Flame's mouth."** The other teens. Of course they'd get curious. How could 'Hiccup the Useless' suddenly get so good at everything? And why was he spending so much time with Astrid? Of course they'd want to know.

He whispered who it was to Astrid, and asked her what she wanted to do about them.

"If you're okay with it, I actually want to tell them the truth. If we can get them to understand, it might be easier to convince the rest of the village. What do you think?"

He wasn't sure. He'd considered it before, but had always convinced himself that it wouldn't work. They already thought he was useless; he didn't want them to think he was crazy –or worse, a traitor- as well.

But now, he had Astrid on his side. She would be able to convince them if he couldn't and she would be able to catch them if they ran. He had his chance now. He knew better than to waste it.

He nodded his agreement.

"I'll thollow you" Astrid nodded back.

They continued walking for another minute before they stopped in the middle of a clearing. Along the way, Hiccup had asked Rascal top fetch any nearby dragons. They'd be good for intimidation and introductions.

Astrid turned around and stared right at where the faint outline of Fishlegs could be seen.

"Come out you four. We know you're there." Fishlegs' outline jumped and Hiccup heard a yelp that sounded very much like it belonged to Snotlout.

Slowly, the four teenagers emerged from the bushes. Fishlegs and Snotlout shared nervous looks and the twins at least had the grace to look slightly ashamed. Though, that was probably because they were caught. It was unlikely they were actually sorry for sneaking around.

"What are you guys doing here?" Astrid had her hands on her hips in a way that probably would have looked like she was about to mother them if she were anyone else. Instead, she just looked terrifying. It was a talent that only Astrid had.

Fishlegs and Snotlout were stuttering messes, so Ruffnut decided to take matters into her own hands.

"We were following you. We noticed you two sneaking around and hanging out with each other. We wanted to know what was up." Hiccup shared a look with Astrid. She nodded her encouragement.

Well, now or never.

He stepped forward. He considered taking his mask off, but that would spook them too much. Instead, he'd do something else that would surprise them.

"Well, I guess since you guys really want to know."

The twins froze. Did he break them? They were never still. Snotlout appeared to be having a heart attack. Fishlegs wasn't doing much better. He could hear Astrid's quiet snicker behind him. She was going to be no help.

He waited for the four of them to finish their crises before turning around and walking, gesturing for them to follow.

"Let's go."

One thing he loved about Norse, was the amount of word combinations that all meant the same thing. If you tried, you could manage to find a sentence without the use of any letters that involved lips to say. It made him sound like he was better at talking than he was.

And pretending to be something he wasn't was very easy for Hiccup. He'd been doing it his whole life, after all.

He lead the group through the woods. Astrid stayed at the back to make sure no one ran back to the village. For good measure, Hiccup took the long way to the cove. He lead them through several places twice, and made twisting turns at random intervals. He even had a few of the local dragons hiss and growl to give them reason to turn the other way. The Zipplebacks especially loved it.

Eventually, they made it to the cove. Hiccup stopped outside the opening.

 _'Toothless, I brought the other teens. Is that okay?'_ Toothless' indignant scream was heard both through their Connection and in the real world. His best friend really was dramatic, not that Hiccup was any better, really. _'We're coming in now.'_ Toothless grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like a string of expletives.

Hiccup turned back to the other five. Four of which were frozen at the sound of a Night Fury roar, and one with an eyebrow raised dryly. He shrugged and gestured for them to continue.

"Hurry."

He had already made sure that none of them had weapons on them, so they couldn't provoke a fight. Hiccup couldn't wait for the looks on their faces when they saw Toothless.


	21. Interlude 2 - Teens' POV

If Fishlegs was being honest, he actually looked up to Hiccup. He was the smartest person in the village, after all. Even if his inventions usually malfunctioned. But the fact that he managed to design and build them on his own was amazing. If Fishlegs was going to be a scholar -like he wanted- then he needed to learn everything he could, and Hiccup was a good place to start.

If Snotlout was being honest, he was more protective of Hiccup than ashamed. He was Snotlout's cousin, after all. Even if he was still useless at practically everything. But that was just more reason to protect him. If Snotlout was going to be chief - he knew he would- then he needed to be able to protect everyone, and Hiccup was a good place to start.

If Tuffnut was being honest, he thought Hiccup was awesome. He caused more destruction than anyone else he knew, after all. Even if it was all accidental. But that was more reason to look up to him (if he could do that accidentally, imagine what he could do on purpose). If Tuffnut was going to be the best prankster in the world -his lifelong dream- then he needed as much firepower as possible, and Hiccup was a good place to start.

If Ruffnut was being honest, she reckoned Hiccup would make a good boyfriend. He was nicest, smartest, most polite person in the village after all. Even if he failed everything required to be a Viking. But that just made him unique. If Ruffnut was going to settle down when she was done fighting –she hoped she lived that long- then she needed candidates for good husbands, and Hiccup was a good place to start.

When Hiccup started improving in Dragon Training, Fishlegs was confused. When Hiccup started hanging out with Astrid, he understood. Astrid must have been teaching him fighting techniques. Although… It was odd that their styles clashed so much, and that Hiccup's style seamed completely non-violent. He just held his hands out and the dragons would practically collapse. Fishlegs had no idea how he was doing it. He himself had always dreamed of finding a non-violent way to fight the dragons. He needed to know.

When Hiccup started improving in Dragon Training, Snotlout was shocked. When Hiccup started hanging out with Astrid, he was even more shocked. What did Hiccup have that Snotlout didn't? Was it his brain? His sudden greatness? Snotlout had always been great. Was it because the chief's son was finally worth something? No, Astrid wasn't that vain. Snotlout had no idea how he was doing it. He himself had tried to get Astrid's attention for years. He needed to know.

When Hiccup started improving in Dragon Training, Tuffnut was surprised. When Hiccup started hanging out with Astrid, he was impressed. He didn't know the boy had it in him to go after the best girl on the island. It just made him even more awesome. He wondered how Hiccup had gotten so good at everything so fast. Was he hiding his talent from them? Why? Maybe… he _wanted_ to cause all that destruction. That was awesome. Tuffnut had no idea what Hiccup was really doing. He himself had always prided himself on knowing what others were doing (that made them easier to prank). He needed to know.

When Hiccup started improving in Dragon Training, Ruffnut was jealous. When Hiccup started hanging out with Astrid, she was even more jealous. She wasn't sure if she was jealous of Astrid, for nabbing the only good boy their age, or mad at Hiccup, for being the first person to actually befriend Astrid. Something Ruffnut had been trying to do for years. Ruffnut had no idea what they were doing together. She herself had never seen anyone as secretive as those two. She needed to know.

That the four of them decided to find out on the same day was pure coincidence. With everyone celebrating a new warrior, the four of them were the only ones to notice the two slip away. They all made their way out at the same time, and they all realised that they were each doing the same thing at the same time.

They would find out. No matter what.


	22. Teens Meet Toothless

Hiccup lead the group down the boulders into the cove. Toothless had clearly decided to hide himself. There was no sign of the Night Fury.

Hiccup saw something twitch in the corner of his eye, but when he looked, there was nothing there. It was probably a Changewing. There were likely more dotted around the cove.

There two Timberjack heads poking out from a bush, barely visible if you didn't know they were there. Hiccup recognised Cushion and her mate.

Behind him, Hiccup heard Rascal's brothers join him in the trees.

When the group was in the middle of the cove, hiccup turned to the other teens.

"Why do you think I lead you here?"

"I heard a dragon in here, are you going to feed us to a dragon for following you?" Tuffnut sounded disturbingly excited about that idea. Hiccup didn't even want to know what went on in his head.

Snotlout whimpered and Hiccup sighed. Thankfully, Astrid took that moment to step in.

"We're not going to feed you to the dragons. We're going to do the opposite."

"…You're going to feed the dragons to us?" Sometimes, Hiccup wondered how Fishlegs came to the conclusions he did. It wasn't a far leap, it was just odd.

Hiccup whipped around to where he could sense Toothless hiding.

 **"Come out. Flame-Remains will make sure they do not run. They do not have Sharp-Shining-Stones."** It was easy to use the dragons' word for ash for Astrid's name, considering he called her 'Ash'.

Toothless grumbled but made his way out from behind the boulders.

Hiccup turned back to the group, keeping an eye on how they react. Astrid had relaxed when she saw him. Fishlegs mumbled under his breath, gaze snapping between Hiccup and Toothless.

Hiccup had spoken aloud on purpose, to show the others that dragons responded to words - to him. It was a good way of showing non-hostile dragons and, at the same time, letting the others how how much power he had over the dragons.

The twins had ducked behind Fishlegs, but were watching Toothless approach, eyes wide with something that definitely wasn't fear or apprehension.

Snotlout was shaking, but puffing up his chest. He made to take a step forward but halted when Astrid hit him.

Toothless stopped at Hiccup's side. He ran a hand along the dragon's neck.

"This is Toothless." To support his statement, Toothless opened his maw to reveal his many sharp teeth. One of these days, Hiccup was going to get back at him for stuff like this. For now, he just settled on whacking the dragon's ear flap.

The group of five stayed silent until Astrid moved to the front of the group. A quick glance told Hiccup that her job –stopping the other four from running- was taken by Yak, who was doing an excellent job of appearing more threatening than she actually was.

Astrid came up to the other side of Toothless, running her hand along his snout.

Eventually, Fishlegs couldn't hold it anymore.

"What type of dragon is that? I've never seen it. Why isn't it attacking you? Did you manage to tame it somehow? What were those sounds you were making before? Were you calling it to you?" That was a lot of questions. Hiccup began scratching loose scales out of Toothless' neck, pointedly ignoring the questions. There was no way he would be able to answer them without revealing that he still couldn't speak properly. He'd let Astrid deal with them.

She sighed from the other side of Toothless.

"Toothless isn't attacking us because he's our friend." Snotlout spluttered indignantly. Ha. Astrid was friends with a dragon and not him. How must that feel?

"The sounds Hiccup was making were Draconian, the language of dragons. Hiccup is the only human that can speak it."

"Because his throat is messed up!" Yes Tuffnut. Because his throat was messed up.

"Toothless is a Night Fury." The group exploded with yelling.

The twins were screaming about how they were big fans of the destruction Toothless caused. Fishlegs was asking questions so rapidly that Hiccup had no idea what he was saying. Snotlout was panicking and saying that Toothless needed to be killed before he destroyed the entire village.

Behind them, Yak had clearly had enough. She growled and the group quieted, finally noticing that she was there. Hiccup also noticed that during their conversation, more dragons had made their way down into the cove and surrounded the group.

The others noticed this too, and did their best to stay as close together and as small as possible. Hiccup sighed.

**"Back away, everyone. The No-Scale-Kin-Killers are just scared. Please show them that you mean no harm."**

At his words, the dragons backed away from the group and to the edges of the cove. Close enough to see and hear what was happening, but far enough away to seem less intimidating.

The twins and Fishlegs looked at him in what appeared to be awe. Snotlout had puffed his chest back out now that he wasn't in immediate danger. He kept glancing nervously between Hiccup and the dragons, clearly realising who was in charge here.

Hiccup stepped forward.

"Dragons aren't what you think they are. They're intelligent and gentle."

Fishlegs appeared to be considering his words. Snotlout looked indignant. Hiccup didn't think the twins were even paying proper attention anymore.

 **"Miscreant, Rascal, Scoundrel. Come here please."** The three Terrors flew out from the tree cover, handing on Hiccup's head and shoulders.

Carefully, Hiccup took Scoundrel off his left shoulder and held him out to the group in front of them.

"He won't attack you."

Fishlegs moved first, walking ahead of the group and reaching a hand out to Scoundrels head. Scoundrel hissed and Hiccup shook him.

**"Behave."**

Fishlegs, who had backed away when Scoundrel hissed, approached again. Slowly, he held his hand over the dragon's head. He lowered it and began patting him. Scoundrel instantly relaxed, purring a little when Fishlegs gained confidence and scratched behind his ear.

Rascal, who was clearly jealous of the affection, jumped off Hiccup's head, over Toothless, and into Astrid's arms. Astrid chuckled before holding him out to Snotlout and the twins.

Ruffnut rushed forward, Tuffnut following closely. They reached out at the same time, each scratching the same spot on opposite sides of his head.

Miscreant clearly noticed that Snotlout still wasn't doing anything, and had decided to do it himself. He jumped off Hiccup right shoulder, landing on Fishlegs' left and launching himself at Snotlout.

The Viking thrust his arms out in surprise, giving Miscreant the perfect landing space. He scurried up Snotlout's arm and onto his shoulder.

Snotlout stood frozen before hesitantly reaching up to pat Miscreant's snout. Miscreant leaned into the touch and nuzzled back. Snotlout let out a breathy chuckle.

Once all four Vikings were comfortable, Hiccup left Scoundrel in Fishlegs' arms and wandered back to Toothless' side. The dragon nudged him.

 _'I promised to show you and your Potential-Mate the Nest. I will not take the others.'_ Hiccup nodded –ignoring the Potential-Mate bit, it was better than saying they actually were Mates- and turned to where Astrid was watching the twins play with Rascal.

"Ash," the four other Vikings startled at the nickname, "Toothless says we should go now."

Astrid nodded and walked over. She glanced at the others and frowned.

"What about them?" Hiccup faced the bushes where he knew Cushion was still hiding.

 **"Could you all please keep an eye on them? Make sure they do not go back to their Nest before we return."** Cushion nodded and moved from the bushes to block the above-ground way out of the cove. Her Mate blocked the way to the tunnels.

Hiccup jumped onto the saddle, he had lengthened it so he didn't have to shuffle forward to fit Astrid. Astrid jumped up behind him and turned to face the others.

"You guys behave until we get back. If you don't, we'll know."

The four on the ground looked around at the large number of dragons with them.

Hiccup nodded to everyone and Toothless took off.


	23. The Nest

They flew west. Into Helheim's Gate.

Hiccup had never been on a search party, but he immediately recognised the mass of smog and sea-stacks above the water from the stories.

Frankly, Hiccup was astounded that they'd managed to get, in about an hour, what would take a fleet maybe three days.

As Toothless flew them into the smog, Hiccup and Astrid lowered themselves into the saddle.

It was eerily silent. Hiccup couldn't hear anything except his and Astrid's breathing.

Then, a ringing filled the air. It grew louder and louder, until it was almost painful.

"Fry, what's wrong?" Astrid's voice brought him back to reality; the ringing became a buzzing in the back of his head.

He turned to face her. She was clearly concerned. Her eyes kept flicking between Hiccup and Toothless.

The dragon was stiff below them, ears upright and eyes wide.

"You can't hear that? There's a ringing." Astrid just looked confused.

Hiccup focused more on Toothless' side of the Connection. The ringing just got louder again.

Something was wrong. It was coming from Toothless.

Hiccup pushed into Toothless' mind. Pain exploded inside his head, not all of it his own.

He pushed deeper. Toothless had taught him how to do this when they agreed to go to the Nest. Probably for this exact reason. Just when he felt the ringing become unbearable, he felt Toothless push back.

Hiccup performed the mental equivalent of grabbing hold of Toothless' mind and pulling it back to the surface.

He could still feel the ringing buzz through Toothless, but it was less painful now.

They wobbled in the air as Toothless came back to himself. Hiccup noticed that Astrid was pressed as close to him as she could get, squishing them both into the saddle. They were surrounded on all sides by dragons. All carrying food in their claws.

"Looks like we thound the hunting darty." Astrid relaxed minutely behind him, clearly relieved that he was okay.

As they flew closer, the ringing tried to take over again. Hiccup felt Toothless' mind brush against his and grabbed hold, keeping the dragon grounded.

Finally, a large, glowing mountain emerged from the smog. As one, the dragons in the group swooped down and into an opening in the mountain.

They flew through a tunnel, the heat of the air increasing the further in they went. Eventually, the tunnel opened up to an enormous cavern. Toothless stuck to the walls until he found perch on a hidden outcropping. The other dragons flew over the centre of the cavern, dropping their food into the red smoke beneath them.

Hiccup looked around to see hundreds of dragons lining the cavern walls. All gazing anxiously into the smoke below them.

Behind him, Hiccup heard Astrid ask what they were doing. Toothless quietly barked at her and she fell silent.

The ringing was gone. Instead, there was an emptiness filling the space. It made Hiccup dizzy.

They watched as more groups of dragons came in from different tunnels, each dropping offerings into the smoke.

Finally, a brown Gronckle flew over the cavern. They stopped in the middle and regurgitated a small fish.

Hiccup heard Toothless let out a small _'Oh, no,_ ' in the back of his mind.

The rest of the dragons chittered nervously amongst themselves.

The Gronckle scratched behind their ear and began to fly towards a lage group of Gronckles standing on a ledge just above them.

Suddenly, an enormous head emerged from the smoke, swallowing the Gronckle whole. The dragons in the cavern pressed as close to the walls as they could.

The ringing filled Hiccup's mind once more, a voice accompanying it. It was deep and dark and unlike anything Hiccup had ever heard.

 **""PATHETIC.""** Fear filled Hiccup at the sound. He couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't even think.

The head lowered itself back into the smoke before freezing, sniffing the air.

** ""INTRUDERS."" **

Oh no.

 **""INTRUDERS!""** The beast roared and lunged towards them. Hiccup was frozen before Astrid's frantic tugging pulled him back to himself and he urged Toothless to fly. They managed to just avoid the beast's teeth, flying up and out the top of the mountain.

Around them, the rest of the dragons in the Nest swarmed and flew upwards. The dragons were screaming. That much was clear in any language. Hiccup wished he couldn't understand what they were saying.

A Zippleback flew below them just as the beast's jaws clamped down. It dragged the Zippleback down into the smoke. Hiccup could hear the Zippleback's family screaming in anguish, mixing with thesounds of terror and rage that filled the entire space.

They burst out of the top of the mountain. The Nest surrounded them, angry.

 **"You brought Her rage! She will never forgive us!"** Hiccup swallowed. Then, he had an idea.

 **"I apologise for bringing Her wrath down on you."** The dragons' anger turned into confusion. Toothless took this moment to begin gliding away from the mountain, the other dragons following unconsciously. **"She is horrible. None of you deserves to live in Her Nest. I welcome you to my Nest. It is a Small-Land in the direction of the Sunrise. There is a small Nest of No-Scale-Kin-Killers, however most of the Small land is untouched by them. They will not know you are there."** The dragons around him looked suspicious, but were no longer growling at them. One Monstrous Nightmare spoke up.

 **"Will we have nests to use? What if we grow too many?"** Her voice was deep and powerful. When she spoke, the other Nest-dragons listened. It was obvious she was the one in charge.

At her question, Toothless spoke up in Hiccup's place.

 **"There is a large cave system under the Small-land. There are Great-Rocks topped with Frozen-Water. The forests are large and filled with many different trees. If there are too many of you, there are other Small-Lands within two Great-Wing-Beats Lumpy-Boulder-Scale-Flight."** Behind him, Astrid asked what they were talking about.

"Toothless and I are inthiting then to Derk. Toothless is talking adout the dlaces they can use thor nests. He's saying that ith there's too nany dragons, there's other islands adout two hours away at the sdeed a Gronckle thlys." Astrid nodded.

The dragons around them discussed the invitation. Eventually, the Nightmare spoke up again.

 **"We accept your invitation. Lead us there."** Toothless barked at her not to order him around. The Nightmare lowered her head in apology and obedience. Toothless continued to fly in the direction of Berk, the rest of the Nest-dragons forming a group behind him.

It was still night, but they flew above the clouds anywayto make sure they weren't spotted. Toothless made a wide arc around to the back of the island. When they ducked below the clouds, the dragons cooed appreciatively. Several of them clearly recognised the island from the raids. Hiccup was thankful they didn't protest living there.

Once he spotted the cove, Hiccup turned to face the dragons.

 **"Anywhere on this side of the Great-Rock is available to you. Please do not attempt to take nest space away from the Tongue-Sharers that already live here. Toothless and I do not want to break up fights."** Toothless barked a laugh.

 **"Speak for yourself. I will not hesitate to remind all of you whom this land belongs to. Me. While you live in my Territory, you will obey my Bonded's and my rules."** The dragons bowed their heads in respect and, with a nod from Toothless, scattered across the island.

Toothless dove into the cove. He landed right in front of a sleeping Nightmare that the twins were gearing to pounce on. The four humans in the cove leapt back at their sudden appearance.

Fishlegs stepped up once they hopped off Toothless' back, Miscreant and Rascal sharing his shoulders.

"How was your trip?" Astrid spoke up before Hiccup had the chance to open his mouth.

"It was horrible! We've been begging Toothless to take us to the nest, and he finally agreed. But it was awful." By now the entire cove, humans and dragons, were listening to Astrid's rant. "There was this massive dragon. Its head was the same size as the great hall. All the other dragons were terrified of it. They were dropping a bunch of food in its mouth. Why were they doing that, Fry?" Hiccup jerked when he realised Astrid was talking to him. Apparently, he was finishing the story. Luckily, Toothless had explained exactly what was happening on their way back.

"She is the Nest-Altha. All dragons create Nests like we create thillages. They need a leader. With dragons, the strongest, oldest or wisest dragon is usually in charge. When they get large enough, the Nest-Altha can create a sort oth sound to control the dragons in the Nest. That's what she was doing. She was forcing then to odey and theed her. When they disadoint Her. She eats then to nake the others scared oth Her. Ith they thear Her, they'll de less likely to redel."

The Vikings were horrified by his explanation. The dragons in the cove crooned softly. Hiccup patted Scoundrel when he landed on Hiccup's shoulder and nuzzled into his neck.

"That's horrible. I've never read about anything like that."

"Yeah. If your dad tried to force us to do stuff we didn't want to, we'd hate it."

"My sister's right. Surprisingly." The cove collectively ignored the sound of Ruffnut punching Tuffnut in the stomach.

"That's why they raid us all the time, right? So if we kill the… nest-altha-" Astrid corrected Snotlout.

"Nest-Alpha. Fry can't pronounce the 'f' sound."

"Because he doesn't have lips."

"Yes, Tuffnut, because he doesn't have lips." She turned to Hiccup. "About Snotlout's question, if we kill it, does that mean that the raids will stop?"

Hiccup thought about it. It was true that the Nest-Alpha was the one forcing the dragons to hunt. And if they could not find any food on their own, it would make sense that they felt they needed to steal it. Now that most, if not all, of Her Nest was on Berk, there would be enough food to go around. But She will be angry about the dragons leaving Her Nest. She might attempt to attack them. And he couldn't allow that to happen. All this fighting had taken too many lives on both sides.

He sighed.

"We will hathe to kill Her. We do not hathe nuch oth a choice." A ray of warmth hit Hiccups back and he turned to see the sun rising over the cove walls. Astrid noticed his gaze and took over.

"We should all get back to the village. We'll properly talk about this, and answer your questions later. Hiccup has a final exam tomorrow," She cut Snotlout off when he opened his mouth, "and we have a plan to avoid killing the Nightmare."


	24. Final Exam

Hiccup was _not_ looking forward to this.

He had gone over the plan with Astrid, Toothless, and the entire island of dragons –before the dragons from the Nest arrived- and he knew what he was going to do. Knew what the dragon was going to. Had backup plans for almost every possibility.

He did not know, however, how the rest of the village was going to react, how his _Dad_ was going to react. What if they acted in a way he hadn't accounted for?

The gate opened. It was slow and creaking, which did not help ease the tension. Gobber pushed him into the arena.

Well, it was now or never. Do or die. Whatever else confident people said.

He walked into the centre of the ring. The cheers of the village ringing in his ears. His head was going to split wide open. And they were going to have to clean his brains up of the floor.

Gods, he was nervous.

In the back of his head, Toothless complained about the 'ridiculous noise you creatures make'. He resisted the urge to smile. After Toothless taught him how to enter each other's minds, he was a constant companion. Even if he wasn't physically with Hiccup. It was comforting.

To his left, Hiccup saw Astrid and the others leaning against the iron fence, worried expressions on their faces. Well, Astrid and Fishlegs looked worried. Snotlout looked like he was trying to hide his worry and the twins looked more encouraging than worried. Though, even from the distance, Hiccup could see the way Ruffnut's brows were furrowed.

He picked a shield and a small knife from the weapons board. The adults shared confused whispers at his choice of weapon. If it wouldn't be useful, then why put it on the board? Idiots.

The gate slammed closed behind him. He nodded to the Vikings in charge of opening the cage. The arena fell silent. Then, the Monstrous Nightmare burst out of his cage. Hiccup had told him what he had to do, and he was acting it out perfectly.

He ran around the arena, climbing onto the chains and snapping at onlookers. The old, rusted chains rattled underneath (above?) the dragon and Hiccup was surprised they didn't break. He continued this for at least a minute before appearing to finally 'realise' Hiccup was in the arena with him.

He slinked around the arena, coming to a stop right in front of Hiccup. The boy took a deep breath. No turning back. Or whatever he'd vaguely heard Astrid say at the start of their first lesson.

First, he dropped his knife, then his shield. He kicked them as far away from the dragon as he could. It wasn't very far, but both of them ignored that. He held his arms out to the dragon.

The arena was filled with confused mumbling. Hiccup's gazed flicked to the other teens for a second. They were all focused intently on him.

His father seemed to realise that Hiccup wasn't going to attack, because he called for the fight to stop. A group of Vikings moved towards the gate. Hiccup shook his head frantically. Looked like he had to speed it up.

Stoick stood up and Hiccup pushed his hand onto the Nightmare's snout, offering a soft apology for his abruptness. The Nightmare mumbled his forgiveness and nuzzled into Hiccup's hand. He scratched the Nightmare where he knew the dragon would like it. The Nightmare leaned into his touches and he ended up holding the dragon's head in his arms.

Stoick stomped to the arena fence and Hiccup only just managed to warn the Nightmare and cover the dragons ears before the chief smashed his Warhammer on the fence. In the back of his mind, Toothless went into a frenzy at the sudden sound. Hiccup calmed him down as best he could while still being aware of his surroundings. Thankfully, Toothless was mostly able to calm himself down on his own.

"Hiccup! Step away from that beast immediately!" Hiccup (and Toothless) was filled with so much anger at the word beast that he didn't think before he responded. Which, honestly, he really needed to work on.

"No! He won't hurt anyone!" The Nightmare obeyed his unspoken command and flopped onto the ground, curling around Hiccup protectively. In return, Hiccup gave Him an appreciative rub on the base of his horns.

The Vikings around him were mumbling between themselves. Some of their faces held anger, and others held confusion. There were a few of the older Vikings who looked… resigned? Where did that expression come from? He'd ask about it later. If he wasn't banished or killed or something. Thankfully, his sudden reveal that he could speak stopped any of them from jumping into the ring.

A thump sounded behind him. Hiccup and the Nightmare looked up to see Astrid had jumped into the arena. The Nightmare growled but stopped when Hiccup shushed him.

Snotlout and the twins followed closely behind Astrid. And, after a few seconds, Fishlegs also joined them.

Hiccup beckoned them over. They circled both him and the Nightmare. One by one, they sat down and began stroking and scratching him. The Vikings around them were silent. Watching.

If a group of teenagers suddenly disobeyed the most important rule of Viking society, in public, Hiccup would be surprised too.

Suddenly, the dragon reared up, surprising the teens. He turned to face Snotlout, making direct eye contact, and Hiccup knew what was happening. He leaned over to Snotlout and whispered.

"Hold out your hand." Snotlout did so. The two stared at each other for a few seconds. Then, the Nightmare leaned into his hand.

The second they his hand touched the Nightmare's snout, Snotlout went stiff. Hiccup knew the feeling. A Half-Bond may not be as strong as a Full-Bond, but it was still strong. A bond between the hearts of two creatures, when they are not compatible enough to share minds.

For a moment, everyone was still. Hiccup was sure even the Vikings could sense the power in the Bond being created.

Hiccup was struck with an idea. He had felt something with the dragons in the arena. Something familiar. And they'd refused names. Now, surrounded by the other teens, he realised where he felt that feeling before.

Slowly, Hiccup stood. He walked over to each of the arena's cages and, one by one, he let the dragons out. They didn't run. Didn't attack or scamper around the ring for an escape. They walked towards the ring of teens in the centre.

The teens, in turn, stood up and walked towards the dragons. Fishlegs approached the Gronckle, the closest dragon to Hiccup. The twins went for the Zippleback and Astrid took the Deadly Nadder. The Terrible Terror scampered up Hiccup's shoulder to rest in the crook of his neck.

Each formed their Bond, and none of the Vikings above them made a single move to stop them.

Hiccup made eye contact with Gothi, and the elder nodded to Hiccup, a proud look on her face. Had she known about this? Or did she sense the bonds like he did?

The moment was broken when a great roar filled the air. It was filled with power and fury.

Hiccup knew that roar.


	25. Battle With The Red Death

The dragons in the ring shifted to stand protectively in front of and over their new Bondeds as the ringing-buzz filled the air. They appeared unsure whether to stay with the humans, run to the roar, or run from it.

Before they could come to their decision, the Nest-Alpha burst from the water. The words were out of his mouth before he thought about them.

"RUN! GET AS THAR AWAY AS YOU CAN!" The Vikings hastily obeyed his command, running to the Great Hall. The teens in the arena jumped onto their dragons' backs. He hadn't told them to do that, but it was helpful. Their dragons would protect them.

The Nest-Alpha took a large breath in, gas gathering at the back of Her mouth. Everyone braced themselves for the flame, when they heard a screeching sound, and the Nest-Alpha was hit with a ball of purple flame.

Hiccup could almost sense the fear the rest of the village felt at Toothless' arrival, but he ignored it. Instead, he used the Nightmare as leverage to get out of the ring and climbed onto the roof of the nearest hut.

He jumped from roof to roof towards the forest. He could sense Toothless approaching from that direction. They met in the middle, Hiccup jumping onto Toothless' back and locking himself into the pedal. They didn't have the time or the clothes to attach him to the saddle, so they would just have to hope Hiccup wasn't knocked off.

 _"The Small-Land's Tongue-Sharers know the Nest-Alpha is here. They are deciding whether to fight or flee."_ Hiccup nodded his understanding and they took off.

_"Whether they're here or not, it's us She's after, and I would prefer it if no one got hurt."_

_"Other than Her."_ Hiccup snorted.

_"Yes. Other than Her."_

The Vikings shouted upon catching sight of Toothless. The dragon rolled so they could see that Hiccup was with him. Hiccup didn't have time to process their reactions before Toothless accelerated and flew higher. They stopped in front of the Nest-Alpha's snout. She narrowed Her eyes and growled.

**""TRAITOR.""**

**"Slither-Fish-Tongue-Sharer,"** Toothless growled back.

The Nest-Alpha roared in rage and sent a massive stream of fire towards them. Thankfully, they just managed to avoid the shot, taking refuge just over Her head. Several of the village buildings, however, were not so lucky.

They flew over Her and Toothless threw a shot at Her tail. It would be best if they could keep Her aim away from Berk.

It was harder than Hiccup would have expected, avoiding Her. Her eyes were small but She was doing very well keeping track of where they were.

Eventually, She stopped shooting and suddenly, the ringing-buzz increased tenfold. Toothless wobbled in the air and Hiccup clamped his hands over his ears.

It was horrible. Before, Her ring had been to control the nest. This time, all of Her willpower was concentrated on them. Hiccup was worried their heads might split open.

He reached for Toothless through their Connection. Toothless reached back and they clung to each other as the ringing-buzz increased. Hiccup's vision turned black at the edges, and he knew Toothless was having the same problem. They wobbled violently in the air.

Just as Hiccup thought he would black out, a blast of magma struck the Nest-Alpha's head, distracting Her. Hiccup looked over the Nest-Alpha's shoulder while Toothless steadied himself. Both kept their mental grips on each other, forming a barrier around their minds so that the Nest-Alpha wouldn't affect them as much if She tried again.

From the village, four dragons were flying towards them. Once his head cleared, Hiccup recognised them as the dragons from the arena. On their backs were the other teens. The Gronckle was the one who had fired.

The Nest-Alpha prepared to breathe fire at the others. Toothless took the chance to blow a hole in Her wing. While She recovered, Hiccup and Toothless joined the teens and their dragons. They took place at the front of the group.

If they could break Her wings, the Nest-Alpha would fall into the water, which would stop Her from breathing fire for at least a few minutes. Hiccup turned to the other teens.

"Ain at Her wings. Try to get Her into the water." Toothless relayed the instructions to the dragons. The humans and dragons nodded their understanding.

Hiccup and Toothless went first, spinning around the Nest-Alpha's head, distracting Her. Astrid and the Deadly Nadder lead the assault on Her wings. The twins and the Hideous Zippleback took Hiccup and Toothless' place as decoy, allowing the two of them to cause more damage to Her wings than the other six combined.

When Toothless ran out of shots, they flew around, making sure the other teens and dragons weren't hit by a stray tail or wing. Occasionally, one of the other teens would fall off their dragons -he would need to make them saddles- and Toothless would catch them.

The Nest-Alpha was steadily getting lower in the sky. Once She realised what they were doing, She roared and sent a stream of flame towards them. The others managed to avoid the fire, but it just managed to graze the end of Toothless' tail. They would have to finish this soon.

The Nest-Alpha took the chance to curve around them, aiming at the village. Before She could fire, a massive stream of boiling water hit Her in the face. Hiccup looked towards the village, which dragons now completely covered. The Scauldrons had fired at the Nest-Alpha and the other dragons must have worked together to put out the fires already there.

Hiccup and Toothless landed on a hut in front of the other dragons, the teens landing next to them. By their request, a Scauldron used the water left in her mouth to put out the fire on Toothless' fin.

Hiccup turned to face the other teens, Toothless translating for the dragons.

"We need to get Her away. Her island is only a short distance. We'll lead Her there and take Her down." The group behind them nodded. Hiccup and Toothless took off first, directing the other dragons on where to go.

The dragons with two or more heads would distract the Nest-Alpha, drawing Her fire away from the others. The sea dragons flew below them, using the water for power and giving the Nest-Alpha nowhere to go. The Boulder and Strike Class dragons were the main force, keeping Her cornered and forcing Her to flee in the direction of Her island. The other dragons stayed around the edge, protecting dragons from wing-head-or-tail butts and keeping stray fireballs from hitting anything.

Hiccup wasn't sure how long they flew for. Long enough that the Terrors and Gronckles started lagging behind. He ordered the dragons to go back home if they found themselves tiring or falling behind. The rest of the Nest would handle things. By the time they reached the island, only half of the original group remained.

Fishlegs and his Bonded had turned back with the other Gronckles. He would keep peace on Berk until the others returned. The twins were beginning to lag, but clearly both them and their Bonded were too eager for a fight to give up.

At some point, the artificial fin had been re-lit and by now, it had almost completely burnt off. Thankfully, they could still glide. As long as there weren't any sharp turns, they would be fine.

* * *

Once the island was in sight, the Nest-Alpha doubled Her efforts to fight and escape. The Nest managed to keep Her mostly contained. The group ended up almost crashing into the mountain. Hiccup and Toothless just barely avoided it.

They needed a way to kill Her. If they let Her escape, She would just attack them again. Dragons could hold their breath for years at a time, so they couldn't try to drown Her. She was too large for impact to affect Her, so they couldn't kill her that way. Maybe there was a way to turn Her firepower against Her.

Firepower… Her fire! If they could ignite Her fire when it was still in her throat, or if they could send fire down Her throat, then they could stop Her.

That wouldn't be enough to kill Her though. Maybe… the gas inside the mountain! At first, Hiccup had thought it was fog, but it had smelled strange. It must have been Her unignited gas.

If they could get Her to swallow it and ignite it, they might stop Her. If they lead Her into it from the top, She wouldn't have enough room to fly, and She'd crash headfirst into the ground. Then, the impact would cause the mountain to collapse in on Her. It was perfect.

Hiccup relayed the plan to the teens, telling the dragons was too risky, since the Nest-Alpha might hear it. Together, the five of them lead the dragons around the Nest-Alpha, driving Her to the top of the mountain. Hiccup and Toothless made themselves as much of a target as possible, insulting Her and flying around in front of Her face.

When they reached the top, the Nest-Alpha decided She had had enough. She lunged at Hiccup and Toothless. Her teeth snapped at the Embers that were left of Toothless' tail. They positioned themselves right above the entrance, and dropped.

By now, Toothless had the firepower for one shot. As soon as the Nest-Alpha was fully in the tunnel, he fired into Her open mouth. The gas that had been building up at the back of Her throat ignited. She attempted to spread her wings to break her fall, but the walls prevented them from opening. Although, ripped and broken as they were, the walls didn't really make much of a difference.

The ground was growing closer. Unfortunately, Toothless' lost fin mean that they couldn't turn around. There was no room to level out either. Hiccup gripped Toothless' saddle. They were going to die here.

Toothless' determined grunt caught Hiccup's attention.

 _"We will NOT die here. Get off my back. I will wrap my wings around you. My skin will protect you from the fire and our Bond will protect us both."_ Hiccup nodded.

Carefully, he slid of the saddle. He grabbed one of Toothless' paws to avoid the wind breaking them apart.

Unfortunately, the Nest-Alpha seemed to have accepted Her fate and had resolved to take them down with Her. A massive claw came down between Hiccup and Toothless, separating them.

Hiccup wasn't sure if he really heard his and Toothless' screams or if they were only in his head as they were sent in flying in opposite directions.

Hiccup felt himself knock against something. He heard more than felt the crack in his leg before his head hit something and he blacked out.


	26. Interlude 3 - Stoick's POV

Stoick had always known his son would be different. He had known from the moment Hiccup was born and Gothi had looked at him with such awe you could have thought the newborn was a God.

That day, Gothi had warned him. Hiccup would do great things. He would be the key to ending the war between humans and dragons, however, if anything went wrong, the war would continue for hundreds more years, until Berk was wiped out. She didn't know how he would end the war, just that it was his fate.

Stoick and Valka had taken the prophecy to mean very different things. Valka was sure that Hiccup would find a way to make peace with the dragons. He would end the war by making an alliance with them. Stoick was confident that Hiccup would grow to be the greatest dragon killer the world had ever seen. He would end the war by filling the beasts with fear and awe, so much so that they would permanently retreat.

Arguing about Hiccup's fate was one of their favourite past-times. No one else except Gobber and Valka's friend, Helga Hofferson, knew about the prophecy, so no one other than them thought it was anything more than just wondering towards the future.

Helga had a daughter almost a year older than Hiccup, but the two children got along splendidly. Astrid and Hiccup were inseparable. Astrid herself could barely walk and Hiccup usually spent the whole time sleeping, but, somehow, they made it work. Astrid would always cling tight to Hiccup when he wasn't feeding, and Hiccup cried when he could see her but wasn't next to her. The only thing that could separate them was Astrid's older brothers working together to distract them.

When that mysterious four-winged dragon broke into their house, maimed his son and took his wife, Stoick knew that Hiccup's fate would be to become the greatest dragon slayer in Midguard. His son would make the dragons pay for what they had done to their family.

As Hiccup had grown, Stoick had begun to wonder if that was really the case.

At two, Hiccup's astounding intelligence wowed the entire village. Hiccup spoke with the same eloquence as a Viking scholar, despite the fact that he couldn't even speak. His empathy was good. It meant he was more protective. He looked at the world differently from everyone else. He would think of things the others never could.

At six, Hiccup's astounding intelligence was exhausting. He never sat still. He had to be doing something with his hands and his brain at all times. Eventually, Stoick gave up and let him start an apprenticeship with Gobber. His empathy was a bit odd. He wasn't any good at hunting, he always cried during fishing trips. He looked at the world differently from everyone else. He asked questions about things Stoick had never considered.

At ten, Hiccup's astounding intelligence got in the way. His inventions, while well-meaning, always backfired, and they would cost Berk the battle. His empathy was troublesome. He had –mostly- gotten over his dislike of hunting and fishing, even if he still refused to kill injured animals. He looked at the world differently from everyone else. Stoick wasn't sure that Hiccup really understood the war.

Hiccup was now fourteen. His astounding intelligence barely meant anything any more. He only ever used it for his ever-failing inventions. His empathy was a problem. He could never kill a dragon; he couldn't even glare at a Terrible Terror. He looked at the world differently from everyone else. He would never be the dragon slayer Stoick had hoped he would be.

Hiccup wasn't a warrior. That meant that the only way he could be the one to end the war was to make peace with the dragons, which was impossible. Stoick had considered it a few times, when Valka was still around to argue over it, but those days were long gone.

At some point, he had given up. Guessed that something had gone wrong and the war would continue until Berk was gone. Wondered if fighting was really worth it if they were destined to be destroyed.

* * *

When Stoick had come home from the nest, he had been delighted to learn about Hiccup's sudden improvement in just about everything Viking.

Being in the forge had made him strong, but only barely. Now, through his shirt and vest, his shoulders looked like he regularly carried dragons around. His legs had definitely gained definition, like he'd spent the last two months straddling something.

Before, he was fast enough to flit about during raids. Now, he ran like the wind itself guided him. Like he could be flying.

His skill with weapons had improved more than Stoick could have ever imagined. That was likely due to the fact the he and Astrid were practically stuck at the hip (He and Helga had reminisced about it over a shared barrel of mead the night after he had returned). Wherever Astrid was, Hiccup was close behind. When you saw Hiccup, you could be sure that Astrid was lurking around somewhere.

With the sudden improvement, Stoick had hoped that Hiccup was ready to accomplish his fate.

Except… while watching Hiccup's matches, Stoick had noticed something odd. The dragons never appeared to be in pain after they collapsed. There wasn't a single drop of blood on the arena ground. That was odd. How did you take down a dragon without injuring it? You just didn't.

Stoick had resolved to ask Hiccup about it after the fight with the Monstrous Nightmare. To become a warrior, to become an adult, Hiccup would need to kill that dragon right there in the ring. There wasn't anything else he could do.

This was the moment where Hiccup would reveal the way he was to fulfil his destiny. Peace or war. After all this time, Stoick knew that it had to be war.

Then, Hiccup dropped his weapons. He left himself completely open. He _reached out_ to the dragon. He had spoken, _actually spoken_ , on the dragon's behalf (Gods, of _course_ he took after Valka).

Stoick had feared for his son's life, had tried to stop the match, had disregarded his sudden ability to talk, had completely forgotten about the prophecy because _his son was in danger_.

The dragon reached back. It gave its head to Hiccup. Without a fight. Without a single protest. Suddenly, Hiccup was standing in the middle of the ring, with the head of a Monstrous Nightmare in his hands, in a way that Stoick could never have imagined.

Maybe Valka had been right. Maybe Hiccup's strength came from being so forgiving, even when the enemy had done horrible things to him. Maybe Hiccup had been so different for a reason.

Everything was silent as the village watched Hiccup and the Nightmare. Then, a soft thump distracted them. Astrid had jumped into the arena and was walking towards Hiccup. Stoick would have thought she wanted to fight, but there was no weapon in her hands, and her posture was relaxed.

Less than a minute later, the other teens joined her. They walked together to the centre of the ring, where Hiccup was waiting. They circled the Nightmare, before sitting down and reaching out to it.

The Nightmare didn't fight. Didn't even move as they began to pet it.

Stoick wasn't sure what to think of what he was seeing. For as long as they had lived on Berk, Vikings had been fighting dragons to the death. It was the only way they knew how to live.

These children were going against that. Now that Stoick thought about it, none of the arena dragons bore any injuries. Neither did the teens. For both parties to come out of training unscathed was unheard of.

It was amazing. And Hiccup was behind it.

Suddenly, the Monstrous Nightmare reared up. Stoick almost reached for his Warhammer when Hiccup's delighted expression stopped him. He wasn't sure what was happening, but he trusted Hiccup (and wasn't that an odd thing to say after so long?).

The Nightmare was staring at Snotlout. Hiccup took hold of Snotlout's hand, saying something to him (Stoick had not yet gotten over the fact that his son had been hiding his ability to talk). Snotlout held his hand out. The Nightmare pushed its muzzle under it.

Everything was still. Stoick was attempting to re-evaluate everything he knew. He could feel something coming from the pair. Something he couldn't quite describe.

Hiccup stood up, breaking Stoick from his thoughts. He walked over to the other cages. One by one, he let the dragons out.

They didn't attack. Stoick wasn't sure if he expected them to. Instead, they walked to the circle of teens. The teens stood up, walking over to a dragon. The Vikings held their hands out, and the dragons responded. Once again, Stoick got that strange feeling.

He glanced at Gothi to see what she thought of the situation. The wise-woman looked proud. So this was how Hiccup would stop the war. Through peace.

A great roar broke the moment. It was unlike anything Stoick had ever heard. Hiccup and the dragons obviously knew what it was, because they tensed and moved to stand between the Vikings and the ocean.

A beast larger than Stoick could ever have imagined burst from the water. Before he could do anything, Hiccup was shouting.

"Run! Get as thar away as you can!" The villagers obeyed without thinking. If it were any other situation, Stoick would have been proud. At the moment, he was too busy herding the village to the Great Hall. Inside the arena, Stoick saw the teens jumping onto the backs of the dragons.

The beast opened its maw, a massive amount of gas gathering in its throat. It was aiming for them.

Before it could fire, a familiar screech rang through the air. A bright purple fireball hit the beast, distracting it. Stoick wasn't sure whether to feel relieved, or terrified that the Night Fury had joined the battle. He settled on both.

Hearing a sound from his left, Stoick turned to see a Night Fury running across the roofs of the huts. Distantly, he wondered why it wasn't flying.

Movement in the arena drew his gaze away from the Night Fury and onto Hiccup. The boy jumped onto the Nightmare's snout and used it to jump through the chains and out of the ring. He climbed onto the closest roof and ran towards the Night Fury.

When they reached each other, Hiccup jumped onto the Night Fury's back. A second later, they vanished. Stoick didn't have the time to look for where they went.

He helped the villagers inside, turning around when there was an enraged bellow from the beast. Stoick watched as Hiccup and the Night Fury flew around it. they way they moved was almost graceful.

Suddenly, the beast froze, swinging its head to look at the pair. They began to wobble in the air, Hiccups hands were over his ears. Whatever that beast was doing, it was hurting his son.

There was a whoosh from his right and the four arena dragons joined Hiccup in the air, attacking the beast. At the same time, a swarm of dragons flew out of the forest. Thankfully, most of the villagers were inside the Great Hall by now. The ones remaining watched as the dragons worked together to put out the fires. A group of Scauldrons fired at the beast before it could attack the village.

Hiccup and the teens landed on a hut in front of the dragons. Hiccup turned back and said something to them that Stoick couldn't hear. A minute later, they were swarming the beast, firing at it and blocking it in. They forced it to turn around, chasing it west, towards Helheim's Gate.

As the group vanished into the horizon, Stoick prayed to all the Gods he knew that Hiccup would return.


	27. Finale

The first time Hiccup woke up, it was to smoke and dust. It was to the feeling of Toothless' wings around him, keeping him safe. It was to a burning pain in his left leg and his back. Pain so intense he passed out again.

The second time he woke up, it was to a hand on his face. It was to Toothless crooning in his ear. It was to a pounding in his back and pain in his leg. There were more hands on him, claws too. One hand brushed against his leg and he blacked out.

The third time he woke up, it was to wind through his hair. It was to someone holding him. It was to pain in his leg and a dull ache in his back. It was to Toothless whining something he couldn't quite understand. He gathered his strength to croon back at his Bonded before passing out.

The fourth time he woke up, it was to Toothless curled around him. It was to his dad's voice rumbling somewhere nearby. It was to numbness in his leg and an odd feeling in his back. It was to a hand in his and the chitter of a Nadder. He stayed awake for almost a minute this time.

The fifth time he woke up, it was to voices all around him. It was to emptiness in his leg and warmth in his back. It was to the twins fighting over something and Snotlout yelling at them. It was to Fishlegs and Astrid mumbling something to each other. It was to the teens' dragons rustling around. He tried to open his eyes, but gave up when Toothless nudged him.

The sixth time he woke up, it was to a strange weight on his leg and an itch in his back. It was to scales all around him. It was to dragons wishing him well and nuzzling his arms and chest. It was to Toothless barking not to crowd him. This time, he had the strength to raise a hand and pet Toothless' wing.

The final time he woke up, it was to Toothless in his face. His Bonded snorted at him. He snorted back. they stared at each other for several seconds before Toothless burst into laughter.

 _"About time you woke up. Everyone has been worried."_ As he spoke (thought?), Toothless' laughter calmed down and he pushed himself under Hiccup's back to curl around him. Hiccup smiled and rubbed his muzzle.

 _"How long was I out for?"_ Toothless sighed.

 _"Too long. The No-Scale-Kin-killers said it has been almost a-month-and-a-week. Whatever that means."_ They really needed to find a new name for humans. Hang on, a month?

Before Hiccup could ask anything more, Miscreant, Rascal and Scoundrel flew in through the open window. The three screeched in delight when they saw that Hiccup was awake. They swarmed him, pulling at his clothes and tugging his hair. They only backed off when Toothless growled at them.

When the three flew away to tell the village the news, Toothless nudged Hiccup hesitantly.

 _"There is something else you should know. About your left hind paw."_ When Toothless mentioned it, Hiccup became aware of the strange feeling in his leg. It was odd, empty and weighted at the same time. It was like something was missing.

Carefully, Hiccup lifted the blanket from his lap. The first thing he noticed was the wooden cup, then the odd design, then, the fact that _his leg was missing_.

He stared at his metal foot in shock. Suddenly, he was back in the Nest. There was a crack in his leg and the most excruciating pain he had ever felt.

He was brought back to himself when Toothless nudged his shoulder. He shuddered, shaking the memory off. The movement meant he noticed the odd feeling in his back.

 _"Toothless, what's up with my back?"_ Toothless hummed.

_"Honestly, I don't know. None of us know. I have a theory though."_

_"A theory on what? What's happened to my back?"_ Toothless slid off the bed (why was Toothless in his room? Was Dad okay with it?) and started rummaging through a pile of things in the corner. He came back with a large mirror in his jaws.

Toothless leaned the mirror against the wall next to Hiccup's bed. Hiccup took off his shirt and looked over his shoulder into the mirror.

Covering his back, were dark, iridescent scales. Almost exactly the same as the scales covering Toothless' whole body. When he spoke next, he couldn't keep the squeak out of his voice, even in his mind.

 _"Alright Toothless, what's your theory?"_ Toothless sniffed at Hiccups back before sitting next to the bed.

 _"I believe it is because of our Bond. In the Nest, I was unable to catch you in time and the flames burned your back. As your back healed, the scales grew in."_ Hiccup reached over his shoulder to rub the spot where skin transitioned to blue-green-black scales. It was a strange feeling. He could feel his fingers on his skin and he could feel the light pressure on his scales. The whole area was tender. He took his hand away almost immediately.

_"When dragons are exposed to flame, their scales grow stronger. When old scales are burned off in a fight or an accident, new, stronger scales grow in. I believe that our Bond means that you carry my blood, and that part of my biology has fused with you."_

Huh. So he was sort of part dragon. That was pretty cool. At this point, after everything that had happened to him, being part dragon wasn't really that extreme. He'd need a few day to get used to the idea, though.

He turned, swinging his legs off the bed and picking his mask up off the bedside table. Now was as good a time as any to see if he could walk on whatever spring-loaded monstrosity had been attached to his leg.

He glanced at the mirror as he tied his mask on and stopped. From his new position, Hiccup noticed a strange nub on his upper back. Upon closer inspection, he realised there were two of them, right between his shoulder blades. Toothless noticed what he was looking at and crooned.

 _"I believe… those may be the beginning of wings. As far as I can tell, it may take many Weather-Cycles before they are fully-formed."_ Wings? _Wings?_

…Of course he'd have wings. Why wouldn't he. This was ridiculous.

Hiccup shook his head. That was a problem for another day. Now, he should be focused on trying to walk.

Toothless stood up, allowing Hiccup to use him as a crutch. He managed to get himself standing. On one leg, but it was still standing. Carefully, he put his left foot down, trying to put weight on the prosthetic. Pain shot up his leg and he lifted it back up.

He tried several more times before managed to find a position that wasn't agonising. He took one step, then another, then another.

Toothless, who was still being used as a crutch, looked at his foot and purred.

 _"We match now."_ Hiccup looked between his foot and Toothless' tail, smiling softly.

_"Yeah, we match."_


End file.
